H-NS is the major repressor of Salmonella Typhimurium Pef fimbriae expression
Résumé
Fimbriae play an important role in adhesion and are therefore essential for the interaction of bacteria with the environments they encounter. Most of them are expressed in vivo but not in vitro, thus making difficult the full characterization of these fimbriae. Here, we characterized the repression of plasmid-encoded fimbriae (Pef) expression, encoded by the pef operon, in the worldwide pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium. We demonstrated that the nucleoid-associated proteins H-NS, Hha and YdgT negatively regulate, at pH 5.1 and pH 7.1, the transcription initiated from the promoter located upstream of pefB, the first ORF of the pef operon. While Hha and YdgT are mainly considered as acting primarily through H-NS to modulate gene transcription, our results strongly suggest that Hha and YdgT repress pef transcription independently of H-NS at acidic pH. We also confirmed the previously described posttranscriptional repression of Pef fimbriae by CsrA titration via the fim mRNA and CsrB and CsrC sRNA. Finally, compared to the repression by CsrA titration and Hha-YdgT, H-NS clearly appeared as the major repressor of Pef expression. These results open new avenues of research to better characterize the regulation of these bacterial adhesive proteins and to clarify their role in the virulence of pathogens.