Disease relevance of traM

• TraM was overexpressed and purified from Escherichia coli [1].
• TraM is a 11.4 kDa protein involved in the control of the conjugal transfer of Agrobacterium tumefaciens Ti plasmids by quorum-sensing [1].

High impact information on traM

• TraM is essential for F plasmid-mediated bacterial conjugation, where it binds to the plasmid DNA near the origin of transfer, and recognizes a component of the transmembrane DNA transfer complex, TraD [2].
• Comparison of TraM to its Glu88 mutants predicted to stabilize the helical structure suggests that the protonated state is the active form for binding TraD in conjugation [2].
• TraM of plasmid R1 controls transfer gene expression as an integrated control element in a complex regulatory network [3].
• TraM is required for conjugation and is encoded on a separate operon between the origin of transfer and the traJ gene [4].
• In light of TraM's regulatory functions in transfer gene expression, we propose that TraM could control conjugative DNA processing in response to intracellular levels of transfer proteins [5].

Biological context of traM

• TraM of plasmid R1 regulates its own expression [6].
• Here, we demonstrate that the host RNA binding protein, Hfq, represses TraJ and TraM synthesis by destabilizing their respective mRNAs [7].
• Whether the interaction between TraM and TraD causes a transient or permanent anchoring of the F factor to the site of transfer is discussed [8].
• One region, containing overlapping TraM and IHF binding sites, could be interpreted as containing two binding sites for each protein [9].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of traM

• Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that this variant of TraD also strongly bound to TraM when it was in complex with its target DNA [10].
• In the present work, the affinity of TraM to TraD was studied in vitro by an overlay assay and by affinity chromatography [8].

References