The mechanism of a formaldehyde-sensing transcriptional regulator

Abstract

Most organisms are exposed to the genotoxic chemical formaldehyde, either from endogenous or environmental sources. Therefore, biology has evolved systems to perceive and detoxify formaldehyde. The frmRA(B) operon that is present in many bacteria represents one such system. The FrmR protein is a transcriptional repressor that is specifically inactivated in the presence of formaldehyde, permitting expression of the formaldehyde detoxification machinery (FrmA and FrmB, when the latter is present). The X-ray structure of the formaldehyde-treated Escherichia coli FrmR (EcFrmR) protein reveals the formation of methylene bridges that link adjacent Pro2 and Cys35 residues in the EcFrmR tetramer. Methylene bridge formation has profound effects on the pattern of surface charge of EcFrmR and combined with biochemical/biophysical data suggests a mechanistic model for formaldehyde-sensing and derepression of frmRA(B) expression in numerous bacterial species.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Denby, K.J. Iwig, J. Bisson, C. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9430-6822 Westwood, J. Rolfe, M.D. Sedelnikova, S.E. Higgins, K. Maroney, M.J. Baker, P.J. Chivers, P.T. Green, J.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Dates:	Accepted: 15 November 2016 Published (online): 9 December 2016 Published: 9 December 2016
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	14 Dec 2016 15:07
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2018 13:53
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1038/srep38879
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/srep38879
Related URLs:	Author
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:109487

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

The mechanism of a formaldehyde-sensing transcriptional regulator

Abstract

Metadata

Download

Published Version

External copy

Export

Statistics