Comparative analysis of H-NS binding profiles of three E.coli strains suggests H-NS binding contributes to sequence diversification of E.coli genome

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The nucleoid protein, H-NS, binds hundreds of regions on the E. coli genome and consequently silences the expression of many genes. Interestingly, many of the genes silenced by H-NS are horizontally acquired, some that are integrated into host transcriptional regulatory networks contribute to stress response, virulence and pathogenicity of the host E. coli strains. Here, we report a comparative evaluation of H-NS binding profiles, determined using the ChAP-seq method, to conserved common segments in the genome sequences of three E.coli strains, K-12, SE11, and SE15. We observed that the H-NS binding profiles are highly conserved in common segments among the strains, and sequence diversity within these regions in the different strains does not affect H-NS interactions. Rather, sequence-diverse regions of the common segments in the E. coli genome tend to bind H-NS, and the encoded genes in these regions seem to play important roles in growth during intestinal environment.