• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.277-283
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• 1997

Promoters inducible by paraquat, a superocide-generating agent, were isolated from Escherichia coli using a promoter-probing plasmid pRS415 with promoterless lacA gene. Twenty one promoters induced by paraquat were selected and further characterized. From sequence analysis, thirteen of the promoters were mapped to their specific loci on the Escherichia coli chromosome. Several promoters were mapped to the upstream of known genes such as usgl, katG, and mglB, whose relationships with superoxide response have not been previously reported. Other promoters were mapped to the upstream region of unknown open reading frames. Downstream of HC 96 promoter are uncharacterized ORFs whose sequences are homologous to ABC-transporter subunits. Downstream of HC84 promoter is an ORF encoding a transcriptional regulator-like protein, which contains a LysR family-specific HTH (helix-turn-helix) DNA bindign motif. We investigated whether these promoters belong to the soxRS regulon. All promoters except HC96 were found to belong to the soxRS regulon. The HC96 promoter was significantly induced by paraquat in the soxRS deletion mutant strain. The basal transcription level of three promoters (HE43, HC71, HD94) significantly increased at the stationary phase, implying that they are regulated by RpoS. However, paraquat inducibility of all promoters disappeared in the stationary phase, suggesting that SoxRS regulatory system is active only in rapidly growing cells.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.267-273
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• 1993

We screened promoters inducible by superoxide radical from Escherichia coli. For this. we constructed random promoter library from E. coli MG 1655 using a promoter-probing plasmid. pJAC4. Six hundred and sixty clones in this library were classified based on their promoter strength by ampicillin gradient plate assay. Three hundred and eighty three clones with relatively weak to medium promoter strength were selected and then screened for their inducibility by superoxide radical on ampicillin gradient plate containing paraquat. Three clones (clones 5. 15 and 34) were detected to be induced by paraquat treatment and the level of induction were between 1.4 and 4 folds. Comparison of nucleotide sequences of the cloned promoter fragment with registered sequences in GENBANK and EMBL databases suggests that the cloned DNA fragments have not been yet characterized in E. coli. Transcription start sites in these clones were determined by rrimer extension and S I nuclease protection analysis. S 1 analysis of clones 5 and IS indicated that the mRNA levels were increased by paraquat treatment. Especially. clone 5 \vas found to have two transcription start sites. the upstream start site of which was selectively used by paraquat treatment. Searching for promoter clements. we found that only the downstream promoter of clone 5 has -10 and - 35 promoter elements recognized by RNA polymerase ($E\sigma^{70}$) and the others have no conserved promoter elements. This suggests that these superoxideinducible promoters may require transcription initiation protein(s) other than $E\sigma^{70}$.