Involvement of colicin in the limited protection of the colicin producing cells against bacteriophage

Abstract

The restriction/modification system is considered to be the most common machinery of microorganisms for protection against bacteriophage infection. However, we found that mitomycin C induced Escherichia coli containing ColE7-K317 can confer limited protection against bacteriophage M13K07 and lambda infection. Our study showed that degree of protection is correlated with the expression level of the ColE7 operon, indicating that colicin E7 alone or the colicin E7-immunity protein complex is directly involved in this protection mechanism. It was also noted that the degree of protection is greater against the single-strand DNA bacteriophage M13K07 than the double-strand bacteriophage(lambda). Coincidently, the K(A) value of ColE7-Im either interacting with single-strand DNA (2.94x10(5)M(-1)) or double-strand DNA (1.75x10(5)M(-1)) reveals that the binding affinity of ColE7-Im with ssDNA is 1.68-fold stronger than that of the protein complex interacting with dsDNA. Interaction between colicin and the DNA may play a central role in this limited protection of the colicin-producing cell against bacteriophages. Based on these observations, we suggest that the colicin exporting pathway may interact to some extent with the bacteriophage infection pathway leading to a limited selective advantage for and limited protection of colicin-producing cells against different bacteriophages.