Evolutionary plasticity of AmrZ regulation in Pseudomonas
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Genetics, Microbiology
- Keywords
- amrZ, Pseudomonas stutzeri, Swimming Motility, Colony Spreading
- Copyright
- © 2016 Baltrus et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Evolutionary plasticity of AmrZ regulation in Pseudomonas . PeerJ Preprints 4:e2041v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2041v2
Abstract
amrZ, a master regulator protein conserved across Pseudomonads, can be either a positive or negative regulator of swimming motility depending on the species examined. To better understand plasticity in the regulatory function of AmrZ, we characterized the mode of regulation for this protein for two different motility related phenotypes in P. stutzeri. As in P. syringae, AmrZ functions as a positive regulator of swimming motility within P. stutzeri, which suggests that the functions of this protein with regards to swimming motility have switched at least twice across Pseudomonads. Shifts in mode of regulation cannot be explained by changes in AmrZ sequence alone. We further show that AmrZ acts as a positive regulator of colony spreading within this strain, and that this regulation is at least partially independent of swimming motility. Closer investigation of mechanistic shifts in dual function regulators like AmrZ could provide unique insights into how transcriptional pathways are rewired between closely related species.
Author Comment
The previous version of this preprint was rejected after peer-review. We have included data showing that AmrZ is also a positive regulator of colony spreading, and that positive regulation by AmrZ at least partially independently regulates these phenotypes. We further include both a protein alignment and phylogenetic trees demonstrating scenarios for evolution of AmrZ mode of regulation.