Micro - E4 Flashcards
Bacterial virus
Bacterial virus = phage = bacteriophage
- Genome can be double-stranded or single-stranded DNA or RNA
- Capsid: protein coat
- Envelope: lipid coat (some may have this)
Two Classes of bacteriophages
- Virulent or Lytic: results in cell lysis (cell death) and production of many progeny phage particles.
- Temperate or lysogenic: can either cause the cell to lyse and produce more progeny phage particles or can lead to maintenance of the virus genome within the living host cell resulting in a dormant state (lysogeny)
Lytic Growth Cycle
1) Adsorption (attach to receptors on bacterium)
2) Penetration (injection and membrane fusion – if have envelope)
3) Gene expression
4) Nucleic acid replication
5) Synthesis of structural proteins
6) Assembly of virons
7) Lysis of bacterium and release of progeny phage
Liberation of progeny bacteriophage
Lysis of the bacterial host and release of the newly synthesized bacteriophages coincides with activation of degrative enzymes that destroy the cytoplasmic membrane and the peptidoglycan cell wall.
- These enzymes are produced as “late proteins”
T7 early genes (timing?) (transcribed by which polymerase?)
code for proteins required for viral replication (e.g., a specific DNA polymerase or polymerase component) (1-12 mins after phage injects its genome into the cytoplasm)
E. coli “host” RNAP recognizes early promoter and transcribes early mRNA, but doesn’t recognize late promoters.
T7 late genes (timing?) (transcribed by which polymerase?)
code for the structural components (capsid, tail fibers) of the virus, and the lysis proteins (8minutes-end)
Transcribed by T7 polymerase
Why does it take 8 minutes before the T7 late transcripts start to be synthesized?
phage polymerase, “T7 polymerase”, is the product of an early gene, called gene 1. (specific for the phage late genes because it only recognizes the late promoters)
takes ~8 minutes to transcribe the gene 1 gene and translate the gene 1 mRNA to make functional T7 polymerase proteins.
Why does transcription of early T7 genes (and host genes) cease during late gene expression?
product of the late gene 2 (Gp2) binds to E. coli RNA polymerase holoenzyme and totally inhibits its activity.
–> shuts off all RNA synthesis from bacterial host and early phage promoters.
Kinds of transcription terminators at end of early T7 mRNA at TE?
Both factor-dependent (has rho-attached to RNAP and factor-independent)
Temperate vs. Lytic Phage
- Temperate: undergoes lytic or lysogenic life cycle (exp. Bacterial lambda)
- Lytic (virulent phages): always undergo lytic growth cycle, cannot “lysogenize” (a repressed viral state with viral genome inserted into host chromosome, ensuring stable inheritance & maintenance)
Inherited phage genome
“prophage” or “provirus”
Cell containing a prophage
lysogeny
N protein
associates with RNAP and causes it to be blind to terminators (a transcriptional “antiterminator”) allowing RNA polymerase to bypass the EARLY terminators
Q-protein
an antiterminator of transcription from Plate. Late genes encode phage structural components and the host lysis enzymes. (once you read through terminator, DESTINED for lysis)
Which gene was not expressed during bacteriophage lambda lytic growth?
cI –> repressor of lytic growth
Recall: protein that binds to DNA at a site within or downstream of a promoter site –> blocks transcription from that promoter by competing with RNA polymerase for interaction with the DNA.
To choose the lysogenic response, the phage needs to do two things quickly
o synthesize a high concentration of CI repressor
o synthesize the Int protein, a DNA recombination protein, that integrates the phage genomic DNA into the bacterial host chromosome at a specific site.
CI gene is transcribed from two promoters:
PRE (promoter for repressor establishment)
PRM (promoter for repressor maintenance)
CI protein
CI –> repressor that binds to PL and PR –> shuts off all early and middle gene expression of the phage (preventing lytic infection)
CII protein
CII –> transcriptional activator that binds to Pre (promoter for repressor establishment), acts as + regulator, leads to high levels of CI repressor (λ repressor) expression.
In order to maintain repression of the lytic cycle, phage λ has a second mechanism for synthesizing the repressor CI…
another promoter, PRM (promoter for repressor MAINTENENCE)
requires the λ CI repressor to act as a positive regulator for its own synthesis. (C1– negative reg of pL and pR but + regulator of its own synthesis)
Conditions which bacteriophage lambda undergoes lytic growth
RICH MEDIUM –> HIGH PROTEASE –> CII degraded–> phage undergoes LYTIC GROWTH
Conditions which bacteriophage lambda undergoes lysogeny
POOR MEDIUM –> LOW PROTEASE –-> CII activates Repressor Promoter –>Phage undergoes LYSOGENY
How prophages escape from lysogenic state
INDUCTION (Elicted by DNA damage through the “SOS response”)
-The return to the lytic cycle can only occur if the repressor protein self-destructs or autoproteolyzes, which occurs upon DNA damage.
How does SOS response affect a prophage?
DNA damage activates RecA.
Activated RecA triggers temperate phage repressors to self-destruct (autoproteolyze).
Loss of phage receptor –> initiation of prophage excision (imprecise) from bacterial chromosome and subsequent lytic growth.
- DNA damage “activates” the cellular protein RecA, which, in turn, interacts with certain bacterial repressors, like LexA (represses expression of binding of DNA repair genes) and causes them (LexA) to self-destruct. This is termed the “SOS” response.
- No LexA –> SOS DNA repair genes are expressed
- int and xis: carry out a recombination reaction that removes the phage DNA from the chromosome as a circle that is identical to the original phage DNA molecule that had previously integrate