Natural Transformation of an Engineered Helicobacter pylori Strain Deficient in Type II Restriction Endonucleases

Restriction-modification (RM) systems are important for bacteria to limit foreign DNA invasion. The naturally competent bacterium Helicobacter pylori has highly diverse strain-specific type II systems. To evaluate the roles of strain-specific restriction in H. pylori natural transformation, a markerless type II restriction endonuclease-deficient (REd) mutant was constructed. We deleted the genes encoding all four active type II restriction endonucleases in H. pylori strain 26695 using sacB-mediated counter-selection. Transformation by donor DNA with exogenous cassettes methylated by Escherichia coli was substantially (1.7 and 2.0 log(10) for cat and aphA, respectively) increased in the REd strain. There also was significantly increased transformation of the REd strain by donor DNA from other H. pylori strains, to an extent corresponding to their shared type II R-M system strain specificity with 26695. Comparison of the REd and wild-type strains indicates that restriction did not affect the length of DNA fragment integration during natural transformation. There also were no differentials in cell growth or susceptibility to DNA damage. In total, the data indicate that the type II REd mutant has enhanced competence with no loss of growth or repair facility compared to the wild type, facilitating H. pylori mutant construction and other genetic engineering.