Abstract
Two-component systems (TCSs) are a prominent sensory system in bacteria. A prototypical TCS comprises a membrane-bound sensor histidine kinase (HK) responsible for sensing the signal and a cytoplasmic response regulator (RR) that controls target gene expression. Signal binding activates a phosphotransfer cascade from the HK to the RR. As a result, the phosphorylated RR undergoes a conformational change that leads to activation of the response. Growing experimental evidence indicates that unphosphorylated RRs may also have regulatory functions, and thus, the classical view that the RR is only active when it is phosphorylated needs to be revisited. In this review, we highlight the most recent findings showing that RRs in the non-phosphorylated state control critical bacterial processes that range from secretion of factors to the host, antibiotic resistance, iron transport, stress response, and cell-wall metabolism to biofilm development.
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C. G-A was supported by a PhD grant from the Universidad Pública de Navarra.
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This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities grant BIO2017-83035-R (Agencia Española de Investigación/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional, European Union) to I.L. and C.S.
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Carmen Gomez-Arrebola: investigation, data curation, writing–review and editing. Cristina Solano: investigation, writing–review and editing. Iñigo Lasa: conceptualization, investigation, writing–original draft.
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Gomez-Arrebola, C., Solano, C. & Lasa, I. Regulation of gene expression by non-phosphorylated response regulators. Int Microbiol 24, 521–529 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10123-021-00180-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10123-021-00180-2