NusG is an intrinsic transcription termination factor that stimulates motility and coordinates gene expression with NusA

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

NusA and NusG are transcription factors that stimulate RNA polymerase pausing in Bacillus subtilis. While NusA was known to function as an intrinsic termination factor in B. subtilis, the role of NusG in this process was unknown. To examine the individual and combinatorial roles that NusA and NusG play in intrinsic termination, Term-seq was conducted in wild type, NusA depletion, DnusG, and NusA depletion DnusG strains. We determined that NusG functions as an intrinsic termination factor that works alone and cooperatively with NusA to facilitate termination at 88% of the 1400 identified intrinsic terminators. Our results indicate that NusG stimulates a sequence-specific pause that assists in the completion of suboptimal terminator hairpins with weak terminal A-U and G-U base pairs at the bottom of the stem. Loss of NusA and NusG leads to global misregulation of gene expression and loss of NusG results in flagella and swimming motility defects.

Data availability

RNA-seq data were deposited in GEO under accession number GSE154522. All other data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

The following data sets were generated

(2021) NusG is an intrinsic transcription termination factor that stimulates motility and coordinates gene expression with NusA
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE154522.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE154522

The following previously published data sets were used

(2020) NusG Controls Transcription Pausing and RNA Polymerase Translocation Throughout the Bacillus subtilis Genome
BioProject, ID PRJNA603835.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/PRJNA603835

Article and author information

Author details

Zachary F Mandell

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Reid T Oshiro

Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Alexander V Yakhnin

NCI RNA Biology Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7313-7054
Rishi Vishwakarma

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Mikhail Kashlev

NCI RNA Biology Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Daniel B Kearns

Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Paul Babitzke

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States

For correspondence
pxb28@psu.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2481-1062

Funding

National Institutes of Health (GM098399)

Paul Babitzke

National Institutes of Health (GM131783)

Daniel B Kearns

National Institutes of Health (intramural)

Mikhail Kashlev

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.