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Two different mechanisms for urea action at the LAC and TNA operons in Escherichia coli

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Summary

Urea, at concentrations which do not interfere with bacterial growth, specifically inhibits the expression of catabolite sensitive operons. To search for the target and the mechanism of urea action we measured lactose (lac) and tryptophanase (tna) specific mRNA synthesis in vivo and in vitro. We show that urea acts by two different mechanisms at these two catabolite sensitive operons, resembling the manner in which catabolite repression regulates lac and tna. At the lac promoter, urea abolishes transcription initiation or blocks an early step in mRNA elongation without interfering with the binding of RNA polymerase and catabolite gene activator protein (CAP). At the tna promoter, urea does not abolish transcription initiation but could interfere with tnaC translation.

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Author notes

  1. Bernadette Blazy

    Present address: Université Paul Sabatier, 118 Route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Pasteur, Unité de Biochimie des Régulations Cellulaires, 28, rue du Docteur Roux, 75724, Paris Cedex 15, France

    Bernadette Blazy & Agnes Ullmann

Authors
  1. Bernadette Blazy
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  2. Agnes Ullmann
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Communicated by R. Devoret

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Blazy, B., Ullmann, A. Two different mechanisms for urea action at the LAC and TNA operons in Escherichia coli . Mol Gen Genet 220, 419–424 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00391748

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00391748

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