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The Staphylococcal Ferritins Are Differentially Regulated in Response to Iron and Manganese and via PerR and Fur

Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, Queen's Medical Centre,¹ School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham,⁴ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Leicester, Leicester,² Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom³

Received 20 March 2003/ Returned for modification 5 June 2003/ Accepted 6 November 2003

Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis ferritin (FtnA and SefA, respectively) homologues are antigenic and highly conserved. A previous study showed that ftnA is a component of the S. aureus PerR regulon with its transcription induced by elevated iron and repressed by PerR, which functions as a manganese-dependent transcriptional repressor. We have further investigated the role of iron and Fur in the regulation of PerR regulon genes ftnA (ferritin), ahpC (alkyl-hydroperoxidase), and mrgA (Dps homologue) and shown that iron has a major role in the regulation of the PerR regulon and hence the oxidative stress response, since in the presence of both iron and manganese, transcription of PerR regulon genes is induced above the repressed levels observed with manganese alone. Furthermore the PerR regulon genes are differentially regulated by metal availability and Fur. First, there is an additional level of PerR-independent regulation of ftnA under low-iron conditions which is not observed with ahpC and mrgA. Second, there is a differential response of these genes to Fur as ftnA expression is constitutive in a fur mutant, while ahpC expression is constitutive under low-Fe/Mn conditions but some repression of ahpC still occurs in the presence of manganese, whereas mrgA expression is still repressed in the fur mutant as in wild-type S. aureus, although there is a decrease in the overall level of mrgA transcription. These studies have also shown that FtnA expression is regulated by growth phase, but maximal transcription of ftnA differs dependent on the growth medium. Moreover, there are significant regulatory differences between the S. aureus and S. epidermidis ferritins, as sefA expression in contrast to that of ftnA is derepressed under low-Fe/Mn ion conditions.

Editor: V. J. DiRita

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