Bacterial histone-like proteins: roles in stress resistance.

Histone-like proteins (HLPs) are small and basic bacterial proteins that are associated with a nucleoid and play roles in maintaining DNA architecture and regulating DNA transactions such as replication, recombination/repair and transcription. The studies on HLPs from a variety of bacterial species in recent years are summarized in this mini-review. A recent study reported a novel DNA-binding protein (HP119) in Helicobacter pylori that shows some HLP features. It plays a large role in aiding bacterial stress resistance. We provide herein additional evidence that HP119 is a nucleoid-associated protein, and present some perspectives for future study.