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Erp, an extracellular protein family specific to mycobacteria

Unité de Génétique Mycobactérienne¹, and Unité de Bactériologie Moléculaire et Médicale², Institut Pasteur, F-75724 Paris Cedex 15, France
Instituto de Biotecnologia, CICV-INTA, Moron, Argentina³

Author for correspondence: Jean-Marc Reyrat. Tel: +33 1 45688828. Fax: +33 1 45688843. e-mail: jmreyrat{at}pasteur.fr

Erp (exported repeated protein) was originally characterized as a virulence factor in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and was thought to be present only in Mycobacterium leprae and members of the TB complex. Here it is shown that Erp is a ubiquitous extracellular protein found in all of the mycobacterial species tested. Erp proteins have a modular organization and contain three domains: a highly conserved amino-terminal domain which includes a signal sequence, a central variable region containing repeats based on the motif PGLTS, and a conserved carboxy-terminal domain rich in proline and alanine. The number and fidelity of PGLTS repeats of the central region differ considerably between mycobacterial species. This region is, however, identical in all of the clinical M. tuberculosis strains tested. In addition, it is shown here that a Mycobacterium smegmatis erp::aph mutant displays altered colony morphology which is complemented by all the Erp orthologues tested. The genome sequence flanking the erp gene includes cell-wall-related ORFs and displays extensive conservation between saprophytic and pathogenic mycobacteria.

Keywords: exported product, protein family, repeats, Mycobacterium

The GenBank accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper are AF213152 (Mycobacterium smegmatis), AF213153 (Mycobacterium marinum), AF213154 (Mycobacterium ulcerans), AF213155 (Mycobacterium xenopi) and AF315789 (Mycobacterium avium). The accession numbers for the partial sequences of the erp gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates are AF165856 (Benin), AF165857 (R.C.A.), AF165858 (Vietnam) and AF165859 (Tahiti).

^a Present address: Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

^b Present address: University of Minnesota, Duluth School of Medicine, Duluth, MN, USA.

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