Abstract
In cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC7942, 37 ORF encoding two-component system (TCS) were identified. Functional analyses so far suggested that TCSs are involved in stress responses such as high light or nutrient depletion, and also in the regulation of circadian rhythm. On the other hand, it is difficult to speculate that in which partner of kinase and regulator, phosphate transfer occurs since many TCS components are orphan genes. Therefore, the TCS network in cyanobacteria is exclusively unclear. In this study, we applied yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) analyses to investigate possible partnership among TCS components of Synechococcus.
We cloned the genes encoding 12 histidine kinases, 20 response regulators and 5 hybrid sensor and regulators into both bait and prey plasmids for Y2H analysis. Then we performed round-robin analysis for all possible interactions. As a result, we identified 31 interactions including orphan gene products. This discovery may facilitate the thorough understanding of bacterial TCSs.
