1887

Abstract

The soil bacterium can utilize exogenous proline as a sole nitrogen or carbon source. The proline-inducible (formerly ) operon encodes proteins responsible for proline uptake and two-step oxidation of proline to glutamate. We now report that a gene (formerly , now designated ) located downstream of the operon is essential for cells to utilize proline as a sole nitrogen or carbon source. Disruption of the gene also abolished proline induction of transcription. expression is not subject to autoregulation and proline induction. The PrcR protein shows no significant amino acid sequence similarity to the known transcriptional activators for proline utilization genes of other bacteria, but it does show partial amino acid sequence similarity to the transcriptional regulator PucR for the purine degradation genes of . PrcR orthologues of unknown function are present in some other species. Primer-extension analysis suggests that both and are transcribed by a σ-dependent promoter. Deletion and mutation analysis revealed that an inverted repeat (5′-TTGTGG-N5-CCACAA-3′) centred at position −76 relative to the transcriptional initiation site of is essential for expression. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that the purified His-tagged PrcR was capable of binding specifically to this inverted repeat. Altogether, these results suggest that PrcR is a PucR-type transcriptional activator that mediates expression of the operon in response to proline availability.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • National Science Council (Award NSC 97-2311-B-010-003-MY3)
  • Aim for the Top University Plan
  • Ministry of Education of the Republic of China
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2011-12-01
2024-03-29
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