Abstract
In order to utilize different nitrogen sources and to survive situations of nitrogen limitation, microorganisms have developed several mechanisms to adapt their metabolism to changes in the nitrogen supply. In this communication, the use of creatinine as an alternative nitrogen source in Corynebacterium glutamicum, the identification of a membrane protein involved in creatinine uptake, the transcriptional regulation of the corresponding gene, and expression regulation of the gene encoding the creatinine deaminase are reported. As shown by mutant analyses, RNA hybridization experiments and real-time PCR, the expression of two genes, crnT and codA, is increased in response to nitrogen limitation, and regulation depends on the global nitrogen regulator AmtR. In addition, synthesis of creatinine deaminase during nitrogen starvation was shown by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF-MS followed by peptide mass fingerprint analysis.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Reinhard Krämer for his continuous interest and support. The help of U. Hildebrandt and H. Bothe with the real-time PCR experiments is gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (GenoMik program) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (BU894/1-3).
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Bendt, A.K., Beckers, G., Silberbach, M. et al. Utilization of creatinine as an alternative nitrogen source in Corynebacterium glutamicum . Arch Microbiol 181, 443–450 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-004-0679-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-004-0679-z