Date of Award
Winter 1-9-2026
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Microbiology and Immunology
First Advisor
Alan Wolfe
Abstract
Post-translational modifications are a critical tool bacteria employ to survive the challenges of microbial life. Acetylation continues to gain more recognition as a modification of unique importance because the sources of acetylation – acetyl-phosphate and acetyl-coenzyme-A – are critical metabolites associated with central carbon metabolism, acetate overflow metabolism and acetate assimilation. This suggests that acetylation, indelibly coupled to metabolic flux, integrates metabolic sensing with any cellular process or pathway where an acetylation alters the function of a protein. Intuitively, this makes sense. Of course, a bacterial cell would coordinate any cellular process closely with the amount of energy available to ensure survival. In practice, demonstrating this connection often proves difficult because disrupting the production of the sources of acetylation can have subtle but wide-reaching implications for cellular physiology generating variables in experimentation that must be accounted for. In the present work, I investigated lysine acetyltransferase-dependent acetylation of LipA, acetyl-phosphate-dependent acetylation of the ribosome, and acetylation of the response regulator RcsB spanning bacterial metabolism, translation, and regulation of gene expression. I demonstrated that overexpression of E. coli lysine acetyltransferases YfiQ and YiaC increases the detected lipoylation signal of the 2-oxoacid dehydrogenase E2 subunits AceF and SucB. I revealed that previously observed changes in the distribution of ribosomal subunits in response to acetylation during growth in tryptone broth change dramatically with the changing metabolic strategies of E. coli grown in minimal media limited for phosphate or magnesium. Lastly, I demonstrated that RcsB acetylation decreases its DNA-binding affinity and revealed residues that are targets for acetylation in vitro.
Recommended Citation
Bank, Thomas Patrick, "An Examination of Lysine Acetylation in the Context of Bacterial Metabolism, Translation, and Regulation of Gene Expression" (2026). Dissertations. 4298.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/4298
