Disease relevance of cheZ

• The 3D trajectories were generated for wild-type Escherichia coli strain RP437 as well as for isogenic derivatives that display smooth swimming due to a cheA deletion (strain RP9535) or incessant tumbling behavior due to a cheZ deletion (strain RP1616) [1].
• Previous genetic evidence has indicated that the methylesterase activity of the chemotaxis system in Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium resides with the cheB gene product, and that this protein may interact with the cheZ protein [2].

High impact information on cheZ

• Half of these suppressors impaired chemotaxis in a cheC+ background and were shown by complementation analysis to be defective in cheZ function [3].
• The remainder of the revertants carried suppressor mutations that mapped at the cheZ locus [3].
• To identify putative regions of functional importance in CheZ, we subjected cheZ to random mutagenesis and isolated 107 nonchemotactic CheZ mutants [4].
• Missense mutations clustered in six regions of cheZ, whereas nonsense and frameshift mutations were scattered reasonably uniformly across the gene [4].
• When transferred to an otherwise wild-type background, most of these suppressor mutations resulted in a generally nonchemotactic phenotype: suppressors of cheY caused a clockwise rotational bias; suppressors of cheZ produced a counterclockwise rotational bias [5].

Biological context of cheZ

• However, the change of MCP methylation level was small, if any, in cheZ strains [6].

Associations of cheZ with chemical compounds

• When cells were starved for methionine, the tumbling mutants changed their swimming behavior depending on the che gene mutated. cheZ mutants, like wild-type bacteria, ceased tumbling shortly after removal of methionine [7].
• A positive signal of NMMA (i.e. sudden dilution) was detected by cheZ mutants with much higher sensitivity than that of a conventional repellent, indole, while both signals were rather poorly but equally detected by cheB mutants [8].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of cheZ

• Radioactive proteins from chemotactic mutants of Escherichia coli with continuous tumbling phenotype (cheB and cheZ) and their otherwise isogenic parent were compared by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis [6].

References