ArticlePLoS pathogens2012
Virulence regulator EspR of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a nucleoid-associated protein.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Structural Studies on the M. tuberculosis Nucleoid-associated-Protein, NapA, Indicates DNA Bridging Mechanism.Journal of molecular biology · 2025Article
- Conserved Heterochromatin-like Structures with Local Regulators Mediate the Iron Stress Response in Mycobacteria.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
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- Genomic variations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis from the lungs and blood of HIV-infected individuals in Uganda: insights into compartmentalization.African health sciences · 2024Article
- Computational Approaches for the Structure-Based Identification of Novel Inhibitors Targeting Nucleoid-Associated Proteins in Mycobacterium Tuberculosis.Molecular biotechnology · 2024Article
- GeF-seq: A Simple Procedure for Base-Pair Resolution ChIP-seq.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- c-di-GMP inhibits the DNA binding activity of H-NS in Salmonella.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Genome-wide screen identifies host loci that modulate Mycobacterium tuberculosis fitness in immunodivergent mice.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Article
- Phase variation as a major mechanism of adaptation inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Genome-wide screen identifies host loci that modulatebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
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- Rv0180c contributes to Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell shape and to infectivity in mice and macrophages.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Type VII secretion systems: structure, functions and transport models.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2021Review
- Genome-Wide Mapping Reveals Complex Regulatory Activities of BfmR inMicroorganisms · 2021Article
- Multi-omic regulatory networks capture downstream effects of kinase inhibition in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2021Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The principal virulence determinant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the ESX-1 protein secretion system, is positively controlled at the transcriptional level by EspR. Depletion of EspR reportedly affects a small number of genes, both positively or negatively, including a key ESX-1 component, the espACD operon. EspR is also thought to be an ESX-1 substrate. Using EspR-specific antibodies in ChIP-Seq experiments (chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by ultra-high throughput DNA sequencing) we show that EspR binds to at least 165 loci on the Mtb genome. Included in the EspR regulon are genes encoding not only EspA, but also EspR itself, the ESX-2 and ESX-5 systems, a host of diverse cell wall functions, such as production of the complex lipid PDIM (phenolthiocerol dimycocerosate) and the PE/PPE cell-surface proteins. EspR binding sites are not restricted to promoter regions and can be clustered. This suggests that rather than functioning as a classical regulatory protein EspR acts globally as a nucleoid-associated protein capable of long-range interactions consistent with a recently established structural model. EspR expression was shown to be growth phase-dependent, peaking in the stationary phase. Overexpression in Mtb strain H37Rv revealed that EspR influences target gene expression both positively or negatively leading to growth arrest. At no stage was EspR secreted into the culture filtrate. Thus, rather than serving as a specific activator of a virulence locus, EspR is a novel nucleoid-associated protein, with both architectural and regulatory roles, that impacts cell wall functions and pathogenesis through multiple genes.
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