Changes in the phosphorylation level of these regulators can alter the expression of operons encoding PTS transporters and PRD protein-regulated genes carrying out diverse cellular

functions of the bacteria (Deutscher et al., 2006). The FrzR activator could act similarly by being involved in the regulation of both the frz and the yicJI operons. Although the yicJI operon is not essential for the life of E. coli, our results indicate INCB024360 nmr that it is necessary for its fitness under all the tested growth conditions. The molecular mechanisms by which the YicJ and YicI proteins are involved in the fitness of the bacteria and particularly in its capacity to survive during the late stationary phase of growth are actually

unknown. However, some metabolic enzymes were described to also play a regulatory role by binding to DNA and RNA, by being involved in mRNA degradation, or by sequestering transcriptional regulators (Morita et al., 2004; Loughman & Caparon, 2006; Domain et al., 2007; Commichau & Stülke, 2008; Commichau et al., 2009). Similarly, the YicI glycosidase, which is devoid of predicted nucleic acid-binding sites, might be involved both in the metabolism of oligosaccharides containing α-1,6-xylosidic linkage and in the interaction with protein(s) involved in the fitness of the bacteria during the late stationary phase of growth. This model is C59 wnt cell line now being tested in our laboratory. This work was supported by the Era-NET PathoGenoMics European program

(grant ANR-06-PATHO-002-01) and by the Institut Fédératif de Recherche 136 ‘Agents transmissibles et Infectiologie’ (France). G.R. was supported by a grant of the Fondation de la Recherche Médicale (Fin de thèse – scientifique). “
“The percentage of bacterial infections refractory to standard antibiotic treatments Adenosine is steadily increasing. Among the most problematic hospital and community-acquired pathogens are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). One novel strategy proposed for treating infections of multidrug-resistant bacteria is the activation of latent toxins of toxin–antitoxin (TA) protein complexes residing within bacteria; however, the prevalence and identity of TA systems in clinical isolates of MRSA and PA has not been defined. We isolated DNA from 78 MRSA and 42 PA clinical isolates and used PCR to probe for the presence of various TA loci. Our results showed that the genes for homologs of the mazEF TA system in MRSA and the relBE and higBA TA systems in PA were present in 100% of the respective strains. Additionally, reverse transcriptase PCR analysis revealed that these transcripts are produced in the clinical isolates.