Fig. 6: Steroidal hormones induce the expression of gonococcal genes mtrC and rpoH in an MtrR-dependent manner.
108 CFU/mL of wild-type (WT) mtrR bearing strains (JC106 and JC108), mtrR deletion mutants (JC107 and JC109) and complemented strains in trans with WT mtrR (JC89 and JC91) and mutant allele mtrR D171A (JC101 and JC102) were grown in GC-broth to late exponential phase in increasing concentrations of progesterone (PTR, A, C) or β-estradiol (EST, B, D), statically in 96-well plates (37 °C, 5% v/v CO2). Expression of mtrC (A, B) and rpoH (C, D) was measured from transcriptional and translational lacZ fusions and expressed as a corresponding β-galactosidase activity in Miller units (MU) as described in the Methods. Data are represented by the mean (bar) + SEM (error bar) of n = 4 biological samples in the bar graphs and as fold change in MU relative to the zero-hormone control in the line graphs. MU values are annotated within each bar. The legends shown for the bar and line graphs in A apply to all graphs in C, D. The experiments were performed at least thrice with reproducible results. Statistics: ANOVA test and a Dunnett’s Multiple Comparison post-test (*statistically different from 0 µM at p < 0.05).
