Backbone assignment of the three dimers of HU from Escherichia coli at 293 K: EcHUα2, EcHUβ2 and EcHUαβ.

HU is one of the major nucleoid-associated proteins involved in bacterial chromosome structure and in all DNA-dependent cellular activities. Similarly to eukaryotic histones, this small dimeric basic protein wraps DNA in a non-sequence specific manner, promoting DNA super-structures. In most bacteria, HU is a homodimeric protein encoded by a single gene. However, in enterobacteria such as Escherichia coli, the presence of two genes coding for two peptidic chains, HUα and HUβ, lead to the coexistence of three forms: two homodimers EcHUα2 and EcHUβ2, as well as a heterodimer EcHUαβ. Genetic and biochemical investigation suggest that each EcHU dimer plays a specific physiological role in bacteria. Their relative abundance depends on the environmental conditions and is driven by an essential, yet unknown, fast outstanding chain-exchange mechanism at physiological temperature. Our goal is to understand this fundamental mechanism from a structural and kinetics standpoint using NMR. For this purpose, the first steps are the assignment of each dimer in their native and intermediate states. Here, we report the backbone assignment of each HU dimers from E. coli at 293 K in their native state.