{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02528735632183908, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.433497536945813, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
A novel bacterial signalling system with a combination of a Ser/Thr kinase cascade and a His/Asp two‐component system

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes have long been thought to use very different types of kinases (the His kinases of the ‘bacterial’ two‐component systems versus the ‘eukaryotic’ Ser/Thr/Tyr kinases) to carry out signal transduction. This paradigm no longer holds true, because both systems are now found together in an increasing number of prokaryotic organisms and ‘two‐component’ His kinase are present in eukaryotes. Pioneering work on bacterial protein serine threonine kinases (PSTKs) has been performed in Myxococcus xanthus, a soil bacterium with a complex life cycle that possesses orthologues of signalling‐related kinases ‘typical’ of both the prokaryotic and the eukaryotic kingdoms. In the work reported in this volume of Molecular Microbiology, Nariya and Inouye describe a PSTK cascade that modulates the biochemical activity of MrpC, a CRP‐like transcriptional regulator for essential developmental signalling pathways in M. xanthus whose transcription is under the control of a two‐component system. This is the first report of both a functional PSTK cascade in bacteria and the use of both PSTK and two‐component systems to control a single complex bacterial signalling event.