HSa of Staphylococcus aureus, a new member of the HU family of bacterial histone-like proteins

Abstract

Histone-like proteins of the HU family are small, sequence-independent DNA binding proteins that facilitate a variety of DNA transactions. Here we report isolation from cell-free extracts of Staphylococcus aureus of HSa, a new member of the HU family. The NH2-terminal amino acid sequence of HSa led to identification of the corresponding gene (hsa) using the genome sequence of S. aureus. HSa is 90 amino acids long (Mr = 9 620) and shares 64 to 80% identity with homologs found in the genus Bacillus.