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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: mic.0.028613-0v1 155/9/3021    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Iida, A. Articles by Horinouchi, S. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Iida, A. Articles by Horinouchi, S. Agricola Articles by Iida, A. Articles by Horinouchi, S.

Identification and characterization of target genes of the GinI/GinR quorum-sensing system in Gluconacetobacter intermedius

Aya Iida

Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan

The GinI/GinR quorum-sensing system represses oxidative fermentation, including acetic acid and gluconic acid fermentation, as well as antifoam activity in Gluconacetobacter intermedius NCI1051. An 89 aa protein, GinA, whose production is induced by the quorum-sensing system, represses both oxidative fermentation and antifoam activity via a still unknown mechanism, although an OmpA family protein, GmpA, as a target of the GinI/GinR quorum-sensing system via GinA, has been found to repress oxidative fermentation. In this study, four novel GinA-inducible genes (gltA, pdeA, pdeB and nagA) were identified and their involvement in oxidative fermentation and antifoam activity was examined by gene disruption. Disruption of nagA (which encodes a putative N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate deacetylase) decreased the growth rate in the exponential growth phase, indicating that nagA was required for the rapid growth of the strain. This unexpected finding revealed a new aspect of the GinI/GinR quorum-sensing system: it accelerates exponential growth by induction of nagA. In contrast, gltA (a putative glycosyltransferase) and pdeA (a putative cyclic-di-GMP phosphodiesterase) were shown to repress oxidative fermentation, including acetic acid and gluconic acid fermentation. gltA was also shown to repress antifoam activity. Disruption of pdeB (a putative phosphodiesterase/diguanylate cyclase) caused no phenotypic changes. Taking our previous results into consideration, these results showed an apparently complex mechanism for repressing oxidative fermentation by the quorum-sensing system; at least three GinA-inducible genes, gltA, pdeA and gmpA, were involved in the repression of oxidative fermentation by the GinI/GinR quorum-sensing system, the most characteristic feature of the acetic acid bacteria.

Correspondence
Sueharu Horinouchi
asuhori{at}mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Present address: Central Research Institute, Mizkan Group Corporation, 2-6 Nakamura-cho, Handa-shi, Aichi 475-8585, Japan.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the gltA, pdeA, pdeB and nagA sequences of Gluconacetobacter intermedius are AB481109, AB481110 and AB481111.