Antitoxin component of bacterial toxin-antitoxin system, MqsA
MqsA_antitoxin is a family of prokaryotic proteins that act as antidotes to the mRNA interferase MqsR. It has a zinc-binding at the very N-terminus indicating its DNA-binding capacity. MqsR is the gene most highly upregulated in E. Colo MqsR_toxin i ...
MqsA_antitoxin is a family of prokaryotic proteins that act as antidotes to the mRNA interferase MqsR. It has a zinc-binding at the very N-terminus indicating its DNA-binding capacity. MqsR is the gene most highly upregulated in E. Colo MqsR_toxin is a family of bacterial toxins that act as an mRNA interferase. MqsR is the gene most highly upregulated in E. coli persister cells [2] and it plays an essential role in biofilm regulation [3] and cell signalling [4]. It forms part of a bacterial toxin-antitoxin TA system, and as expected for a TA system, the expression of the MqsR toxin leads to growth arrest, while co-expression with its antitoxin, MqsA, rescues the growth arrest phenotype. In addition, MqsR associates with MqsA to form a tight, non-toxic complex and both MqsA alone and the MqsR:MqsA2:MqsR complex bind and regulate the mqsR promoter. The structure of MqsR shows that is is a member of the RelE/YoeB family of bacterial RNases that are structurally and functionally characterised bacterial toxins [1].
