TITLE:
Bioinformatics Analysis of NprR-NprX Quorum-Sensing System of Bacillus thuringiensis Isolates from the Papaloapan Region, Oaxaca-Mexico
AUTHORS:
Humberto Rafael Bravo-D, Alain Cruz-Nolasco, Luis Raúl Gutiérrez-Lucas, Ana Karin Navarro-Mtz
KEYWORDS:
Quorum-Sensing, Bacillus thuringiensis, NprR-NprX, Phylogenetic Tree
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Biological Chemistry,
Vol.5 No.7,
December
30,
2015
ABSTRACT: Quorum sensing is a chemical communication process that bacteria use to regulate collective behaviors. In Gram-positive bacteria, oligopeptides (called autoinducers) are the signaling molecules to elicit quorum sensing. In Bacillus thuringiensis, NprR is a transcriptional regulator whose activity depends on the NprX signalling peptide. Bacillus thuringiensis is closely related to Bacillus cereus and Bacillus anthracis. The principal difference between them is that Bacillus thuringiensis is the only one that produced Cry protein. The aim of this study is to explore the relation of nprR and 16S rRNA genes in Bacillus thurin-giensis. Phylogenetic trees of nucleotide sequences of nprR and 16S rRNA genes were built. Sequences of fourteen new isolates from Papaloapan region were included in those phylo-genetic trees. In order to identify the isolates, a simple and fast methodology considering the Cry protein formation was used. The 16S rRNA phylogenetic tree allows identify eight isolates as Bacillus thuringiensis and the others as Bacillus spp. The nprR phylogenetic tree does not match with the 16S rRNA phylogenetic tree. This confirms that nprR is not a molecular marker for evolution. Most of the new isolates have the same NprR sequence (WTSDIVG). However, the SKPDIVG is the most common NprR sequence in thuringiensis species.