SOS response in bacteria is triggered upon DNA damage. It enables bacteria to maintain the integrity of their genome. The key regulator of the SOS response is the transcription factor LexA. LexA binds to promoter regions and represses the induction of SOS genes involved in DNA damage repair. The bacteriophage GIL01 encodes the gp7 protein, which interacts with LexA from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. The gp7 protein increases the affinity of LexA for target DNA sites and inhibits RecA-induced self-cleavage of LexA. Therefore, the gp7 protein affects the induction of the SOS response which presumably inhibits the adaptation of bacteria to harsh environmental conditions, such as antibiotic stress. The aim of this work was to identify molecules that have the potential to affect the activities of LexA, similar to the gp7 protein. Therefore, we purified the recombinant proteins: the gp8 protein of the temperate bacteriophage GIL01, which infects the bacterium B. thuringiensis and the recombinant protein OrbA of the bacteriophage ICP1 that infects bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Our results indicate that the OrbA and gp8 proteins do not interact with the protein LexA of the host bacterium and do not affect the self-cleavage activity of LexA. Next, we tested the effect of selected small compounds that we obtained from the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Stanislav Gobec of the Faculty of Pharmacy, on LexA activity. Using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, we showed that the molecule 6-hydroxyflavone (U5) has a low affinity for the LexA protein of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and inhibits the binding of LexA from E. coli to the target DNA sites. Using in vivo experiments, we demonstrated that U5 inhibits the growth of the E. coli ΔacrB strain and acts synergistically with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. Furthermore, the molecule U5 weakly inhibited the growth of strain E. coli RW542, which carries the frameshift mutation in the lexA gene and the deleted promoter element of the sulA gene. Therefore, we hypothesize that compound U5 also affects processes other than the SOS response.
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