A mean ratio of two was taken as the cutoff of statistical significance. Overproduction and IWR-1 price purification of Y. pestis Zur protein The 537 bp entire coding region of zur gene

was amplified by primer Zur-P-F and Zur-P-R from Y. pestis 201 (see Additional file 2 for primer sequences) and cloned directionally into the BamHI and HindIII sites of plasmid pET24a (Novagen), which was verified by DNA sequencing. The stop codon was introduced in the reverse primer to make sure that the expressed Zur did not contain His-tag. The resulted recombinant plasmid was transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3). For overproduction Screening Library of Zur, an overnight culture from a single colony was used to inoculate 200 milliliter of LB medium. Cells were grown with vigorous shaking at 37°C to an optical density at 620 nm (OD620) of 0.8 and were induced with 1 mM IPTG (isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside) for 6 h at 37°C. For purification, harvested cells were treated with BugBuster® Protein Extraction Reagent (Novagen). Inclusion bodies were recovered by centrifugation and washed twice with the same reagent. The Zur protein

was renaturated and then concentrated to a final concentration of about 0.6 mg/ml with the Amicon Ultra-15 (Millipore). The protein purity was verified by SDS-PAGE with silver staining. All steps after cell harvest were performed at 4°C, and the purified Zur protein was stored at -80°C. Gel mobility shift assay (EMSA) Primers were designed to amplify the DNA region upstream of the start codon of each gene tested selleck kinase inhibitor (see Additional CHIR98014 ic50 file 2 for primer sequences). EMSA was performed by using the Gel Shift Assay Systems (Promega) [22, 23]. The 5′ ends of DNA were labeled using [γ-32P] ATP and T4 polynucleotide kinase. DNA binding was performed in a 10 μl reaction volume containing binding buffer [20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 50 mM KCl, 1 mM DTT, 5% glycerol, 0.05 mg/ml poly-(dI-dC) and 100 μM ZnCl2], labeled DNA and various concentrations of the Zur protein. We still included

three controls in each EMSA experiment: i) specific DNA competitor (unlabeled promoter region of the same gene); ii) nonspecific DNA competitor [unlabeled promoter region of the specific gene without the predicted binding site. one of the negative controls]; and iii) nonspecific protein competitor (rabbit anti-F1-protein polyclonal antibody). After incubation at room temperature for 30 min, the products were loaded onto a native 4% (w/v) polyacrylamide gel and electrophoresed in 0.5×TBE buffer for about 30 min at 220 V. Radioactive species were detected by autoradiography after exposure to Kodak film at -70°C. DNase I footprinting The promoter DNA region was prepared by PCR amplification performed with the promoter-specific primer pairs (see Additional file 2 for primer sequences), including a 5′-32P-labeled primer (either forward or reverse) and its nonlabelled counterpart. The PCR products were purified by using MinElute reaction cleanup columns (Qiagen).