Analysis of global transcriptional changes in H. neptunium cells lacking the cell cycle regulatory genes pleC, divJ or divK

Within the bacterial phylum of the Alphaproteobacteria many species show complex life cycles. Proper regulation of these life cycles requires cell cycle regulation pathways, one of which is the so-called CtrA pathway. Key factors in the CtrA pathway are the histidine kinases PleC and DivJ (located at opposite poles in the cell) and the response regulator DivK. Within the Alphaproteobacteria, stalked budding bacteria are even more asymmetric than most other representatives. How they regulate their cell cycle has not been studied before. Here, we investigated the transcriptional profiles of Hyphomonas neptunium cells lacking either PleC, DivJ or DivK and compared their profiles to that of wildtype cells. We found that the changes upon deletion of DivJ, PleC and especially DivK were smaller than expected from related organisms. mRNA profiles for the H. neptunium wild-type strain or mutants with in-frame deletion in the pleC, divJ or divK gene were generated in duplicate by next-generation sequencing, using an Illumina NextSeq 500 system with 75 bp read length and a "High 75" sequencing kit