NprR, a moonlighting quorum sensor shifting from a phosphatase activity to a transcriptional activator
Authors:Stéphane Perchat1, Antoine Talagas2, Samira Zouhir2, Sandrine Poncet1, Laurent Bouillaut1,¶, Sylvie Nessler2 and Didier Lereclus1
doi: 10.15698/mic2016.11.542
Volume 3, pp. 573 to 575, published 05/11/2016.
1 Micalis Institute, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France.
2 Institute of Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex France.
¶Present address: Laurent Bouillaut, Matrivax R & D corp., 650 Albany street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Keywords:
Bacillus, bifunctional protein, phosphatase, quorum sensing, sporulation.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that no competing interest exists.
Please cite this article as:
Stéphane Perchat, Antoine Talagas, Samira Zouhir, Sandrine Poncet, Laurent Bouillaut, Sylvie Nessler and Didier Lereclus (2016). NprR, a moonlighting quorum sensor shifting from a phosphatase activity to a transcriptional activator. Microbial Cell 3(11): 573-575. doi: 10.15698/mic2016.11.542
© 2016 Perchat et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Regulation of biological functions requires factors (proteins, peptides or chemicals) able to sense and translate environmental conditions or any circumstances in order to modulate the transcription of a gene, the stability of a transcript or the activity of a protein. Quorum sensing is a regulation mechanism connecting cell density to the physiological state of a single cell. In bacteria, quorum sensing coordinates virulence, cell fate and commitment to sporulation and other adaptation properties. The critical role of such regulatory systems was demonstrated in pathogenicity and adaptation of bacteria from the Bacillus cereus group (i.e. B. cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis). Furthermore, using insects as a model of infection, it was shown that sequential activation of several quorum sensing systems allowed bacteria to switch from a virulence state to a necrotrophic lifestyle, allowing their survival in the host cadaver, and ultimately to the commitment into sporulation. The chronological development of these physiological states is directed by quorum sensors forming the RNPP family. Among them, NprR combines two distinct functions connecting sporulation to necrotrophism in B. thuringiensis. In the absence of its cognate signaling peptide (NprX), NprR negatively controls sporulation by acting as a phosphatase. In the presence of NprX, it acts as a transcription factor regulating a set of genes involved in the survival of the bacteria in the insect cadaver.