{"doi":"10.1128/mbio.00952-22","title":"Homologs of the Escherichia coli F Element Protein TraR, Including Phage Lambda Orf73, Directly Reprogram Host Transcription","abstract":"TraR is a distant homolog of the transcription factor DksA and the founding member of a large family of small proteins encoded by proteobacterial phages and conjugative plasmids. Reprogramming transcription during the stringent response requires the interaction of DksA not only with RNA polymerase but also with the stress-induced regulatory nucleotide ppGpp. We show here that five phage TraR homologs by themselves, without ppGpp, regulate transcription of host promoters, mimicking the effects of DksA and ppGpp together. During a stringent response, ppGpp independently binds directly to, and inhibits the activities of, many proteins in addition to RNA polymerase, including translation factors, enzymes needed for ribonucleotide biosynthesis, and other metabolic enzymes. Here, we suggest a physiological role for TraR-like proteins: bacteriophages utilize TraR homologs to reprogram host transcription in the absence of ppGpp induction and thus without inhibiting host enzymes needed for phage development.","journal":"mBio","year":2022,"id":276572,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9549,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":381135,"name":"Wilma Ross","orcid":"0000-0001-8463-2424","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":897195,"name":"Madeline S. Akbari","orcid":"0000-0001-6706-5704","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":947116,"name":"Xintian Li","orcid":"0000-0001-6523-7605","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":947117,"name":"James R. J. Haycocks","orcid":"0000-0003-3492-1257","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":947118,"name":"David C. Grainger","orcid":"0000-0003-3375-5154","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":372754,"name":"Donald L. Court","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381136,"name":"Richard L. Gourse","orcid":"0000-0002-9675-5314","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":947596,"name":"Saumya Gopalkrishnan","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":66,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:28:30.709588Z","pmid":"35583320","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}