Nucleotide sequence and characterization of cdrA, a cell division-related gene of Helicobacter pylori

We identified cell division-related gene cdrA in Helicobacter pylori HPK5. The putative gene product, CdrA, is a 367-amino-acid polypeptide that exhibited a high level of homology to conserved hypothetical ATP-binding protein HP0066 of H. pylori 26695, except in the N-terminal region, and showed some similarity to the FtsK/SpoIIIE family proteins. We isolated a cdrA-disrupted mutant by allelic exchange mutagenesis. Because of the low transformation frequency, the possibility that a suppressing mutation would be found in the obtained cdrA mutant was discussed. A repressive role for CdrA on cell division was suggested by the observations that the wild-type strain formed filamentous cells in a high-salt level medium at early stationary phase, while a cdrA-disrupted mutant did not show such an abnormality. In addition, the wild-type strain adopted coccoid forms in the stationary phase, whereas the cdrA-disrupted mutant remained mostly as short rods. Furthermore, the cdrA-disrupted mutant regained the filamentation phenotype when the intact cdrA gene was introduced by allelic exchange. Taken together, these observations show that the cdrA gene plays an important role in the cell growth of H. pylori.