Bacterial nucleoid-associated proteins play important roles in chromosome organization and global gene regulation. Lsr2 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a unique nucleoid-associated protein that binds AT-rich regions of the genome, including genomic islands acquired by horizontal gene transfer and regions encoding major virulence factors. Domain swapping experiments reveal that Lsr2 has an N-terminal dimerisation domain and a C-terminal DNA-binding domain. This entry represents the dimerisation domain of Lsr2

Besides enabling dimerisation of Lsr2 monomers, structural studies on the N-terminal domain have shown that Lsr2 dimers show a self-associative propensity allowing chromosome compaction and gene regulation in response to external stress PMID:20133735