The opportunistic pathogen P. aeruginosa is a leading cause of hospital-accquired infections, and is also the primary cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). In this thesis, I describe the identification and characterization of a novel LysR-type transcription regulator (LTTR) of P. aeruginosa named BexR. I show that BexR exhibits reversible ON/OFF bistable expression, which leads to the bistable expression of several genes including one encoding a virulence factor. I present results suggesting that this bistable expression depends on positive feedback of BexR. This work illuminates the simplicity with which a transcription regulatory network can exhibit a complex behavior and generate phenotypic diversity in a clonal population.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/11148782 |
| Date | 08 October 2013 |
| Creators | Turner, Keith Holte |
| Contributors | Hochschild, Ann |
| Publisher | Harvard University |
| Source Sets | Harvard University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | open |
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