Acetylated HspQ inhibits ClpS-dependent proteolysis of ClpAP substrates in vivo. (A) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag phoP-HA (JY872), oat-FLAG phoP-HA hspQ (JY873), oat-Flag phoP-HA clpS (JY874), and oat-Flag phoP-HA hspQ clpS (JY875) Salmonella. (B,C) Western blot analysis of crude extracts (B) and mRNA abundance of the hspQ gene (C) from oat-Flag (JY655) Salmonella with no plasmid or with a hspQ-expressing plasmid (phspQ; pUHE-hspQ) using 0, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, or 1000 µM IPTG. (D) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag (JY655), oat-Flag lon (JY1009), oat-Flag clpS (JY657), and oat-Flag lon clpS (JY1010) Salmonella. (E) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag (JY655), oat-Flag hspQ (JY686), oat-Flag lon (JY1014), and oat-Flag lon hspQ (JY1016) Salmonella. (F) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag (JY655) and oat-Flag hspQ (JY686) Salmonella with the plasmid vector (vector), the hspQ-expressing plasmid (phspQ), or the hspQ-Flag-expressing plasmid (phspQ-Flag) using 100 µM IPTG. (G) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag (JY655), oat-Flag clpS (JY657), oat-Flag hspQ (JY686), oat-Flag qad (JY774), oat-Flag clpS hspQ (JY687), oat-Flag hspQ qad (JY773), oat-Flag qad clpS (JY775), and oat-Flag clpS hspQ qad (JY772) Salmonella. (H) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from oat-Flag (JY655), oat-Flag clpS (JY657), oat-Flag hspQ (JY686), and oat-Flag clpS hspQ (JY687) Salmonella. (I) Western blot analysis of crude extracts from hspQ-Flag oat-Flag (JY865), hspQK96R-Flag oat-Flag (JY2002), and hspQK96Q-Flag oat-Flag (JY2003) Salmonella. Words with italicized letters indicate gene names. For Western blot analysis, samples were analyzed using antibodies directed to the Flag or HA epitopes or the AcnB, AtpB, OmpA, or GroEL proteins. Data are representative of at least two independent experiments, which gave similar results. See also Supplemental Figure S6.