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Insights into the LexA regulon of Thermotogales

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Abstract

The lexA genes of Thermotoga maritima and Petrotoga miotherma, both members of the Order Thermotogales, have been cloned and their transcriptional organization, as well as the functional characteristics of their encoded products, analyzed. In both bacterial species, the lexA gene was found to be co-transcribed together with another four (T. maritima) or three (P. miotherma) upstream open-reading frames. The P. miotherma LexA was able to bind promoters of both the cognate lexA encoding operon and the uvrA gene but not to that of the recA. Conversely, LexA protein and crude cell extracts from T. maritima were unable to bind promoters governing the expression of either its lexA or recA genes. In agreement with these observations, no functional copy of the P. miotherma LexA box, corresponding to the GANTN6GANNAC motif, seems to be present in the T. maritima genome. Giving support to the proposal that the evolutionary branching order of the Order Thermotogales is very close to that of Gram-positive bacteria, the P. miotherma LexA protein was still able to recognize the previously described LexA-binding sequence for Gram-positive bacteria.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Grant BFM2004-02768/BMC from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC) of Spain. Dra. S. Campoy is a recipient of a post-doctoral contract from the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria – Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (INIA-IRTA). We are deeply grateful to Joan Ruíz and Dr. Pilar Cortés for their excellent technical assistance and to our English teaching university colleague, Chuck Simmons, for his help in the language revision and correction of this article. We are indebted to Professors Robert Huber and Christian Jeanthon for providing both the T. maritima and the P. miotherma cell masses. We are also indebted to Dr. Roger Woodgate for his generous gift of the B. subtilis LexA protein. We wish to acknowledge Integrated Genomics, Inc., for the release of P. miotherma genome sequence contigs.

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  1. Gerard Mazón

    Present address: Instabilité du Génome et Cancérogènese (IGC)-Institut de Biologie Structurale et Microbiologie (IBSM) of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).31, Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402, Marseille, France

  2. Antonio R. Fernández de Henestrosa

    Present address: Department of Toxicology, ESTEVE, Mare de Deu de Montserrat 221, 08041, Barcelona, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA), 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Gerard Mazón, Susana Campoy & Jordi Barbé

  2. Departament de Genètica i Microbiologia, Edifici C. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Antonio R. Fernández de Henestrosa, Jordi Barbé & Jordi Barbé

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  1. Gerard Mazón
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  2. Susana Campoy
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Correspondence to Jordi Barbé.

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Gerard Mazón and Susana Campoy should be regarded as joint first authors in this work.

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Mazón, G., Campoy, S., Fernández de Henestrosa, A.R. et al. Insights into the LexA regulon of Thermotogales . Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 90, 123–137 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-006-9066-x

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