Cd-induced cytosolic proteome changes in the cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC7120 are mediated by LexA as one of the regulatory proteins

LexA, a well-characterized transcriptional repressor of the SOS genes in heterotrophic bacteria, has been shown to regulate diverse genes in cyanobacteria. An earlier study showed that LexA overexpression in a cyanobacterium, Anabaena sp. PCC7120 reduces its tolerance to Cd stress. This was later shown to be due to modulation of photosynthetic redox poising by LexA under Cd stress. However, in light of the global regulatory nature of LexA and the prior prediction of AnLexA-box in a few heavy metal-responsive genes, we speculated that LexA has a broad role in Cd stress tolerance, with regulation over a variety of Cd stress-responsive genes in addition to the regulation on genes related with photosynthetic redox poising. Thus, to further expand the knowledge on the regulatory role of LexA in Cd stress tolerance, a cytosolic proteome profiling of Anabaena constitutively overexpressing LexA upon Cd stress was performed. The proteomic study revealed 25 differentially accumulated proteins (DAPs) in response to the combined effect of LexA overexpression and Cd stress, and the other 11 DAPs exclusively in response to either LexA overexpression or Cd stress. The 36 identified proteins were related with a variety of functions, including photosynthesis, carbon metabolism, antioxidative defence, protein turnover, chaperones, post-transcriptional modifications, and a few unknown and hypothetical proteins. The regulation of LexA on corresponding genes, as well as six previously reported Cd efflux transporters, was further validated by the presence of AnLexA-boxes, transcript, and/or promoter analyses. In a nutshell, this study identifies the regulation of LexA on several genes and proteins of various functional categories in Anabaena that are responsive to Cd stress, hence expanding the regulatory role of LexA under Cd stress. Highlights ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.