Membrane-associated σ factors disrupt rRNA operon clustering in Escherichia coli
Fig 2
σH promotes de-clustering of rrnA-rrnD independent of its transcriptional activity.
(A) Distance between rrnA-D with ectopic expression of rpoH from pTc (+). Induction was carried out for one hour prior to microscopy. In the fourth plot from left, rpoD is cloned downstream of TetR, from a constitutively expressed promoter, divergent from pTc. All other descriptions as in Fig 1. (B) Transcriptional activity of ectopically expressed rpoH. Miller assay was carried out as described in Methods. Student t’s test was performed pairwise to determine statistical significance (two-tailed, ns: not statistically significant, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001). (C) Distance between rrnA-D with ectopic expression of indicated rpoH mutants, compared to empty vector control. (D) Transcriptional activity of ectopically expressed rpoH mutants, as described in B. Data used for plotting Fig 2 graphs can be found in the Supplemental “S1 Data” file under appropriate figure headings. Created in BioRender. Ho, K. (2025) https://BioRender.com/k54q156.