Ec. Demacario et al., ARCHAEAL GRPE - TRANSCRIPTION IN 2 DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGIC STAGES OF METHANOSARCINA-MAZEI AND COMPARISON WITH DNAK AND DNAJ, Journal of bacteriology, 177(3), 1995, pp. 544-550
Transcription of the heat shock gene grpE was studied in two different
morphologic stages of the archaeon Methanosarcina mazei S-6 that diff
er in resistance to physical and chemical traumas: single cells and pa
ckets. While single cells are directly exposed to environmental change
s, such as temperature elevations, cells in packets are surrounded by
intercellular and peripheral material that keeps them together in a gl
obular structure which can reach several millimeters in diameter. grpE
transcript levels determined by Northern (RNA) blotting peaked after
a 15-min heat shock in single cells. In contrast, the highest transcri
pt levels in packets were observed after the longest heat shock tested
, 60 min. The same response profiles were demonstrated by primer exten
sion experiments and S1 nuclease analysis. A comparison of the grpE re
sponse to heat shock with those of dnaK and dnaJ showed that the grpE
transcript level was the most increased, closely followed by that of t
he dnaK transcript, with that of the dnaJ gene being the least augment
ed. Transcription of grpE started at the same site under normal and he
at shock temperatures, and the transcript was consistently similar to
700 bases long. Codon usage patterns revealed that the three archaeal
genes use most codons and have the same codon preference for 61% of th
e amino acids.