Substitution of a highly conserved histidine in the Escherichia coli heat shock transcription factor, sigma32, affects promoter utilization in vitro and leads to overexpression of the biofilm-associated flu protein in vivo

Control of gene expression at a bacterial leader RNA, the agn43 gene encoding outer membrane protein Ag43 of Escherichia coli

The family of agn alleles in Escherichia coli pathovars encodes autotransporters that have been implicated in biofilm formation, autoaggregation, and attachment to cells. The alleles all have long leader RNAs preceding the Ag43 translation initiation codon. Here we present an analysis of the agn43 leader RNA from E. coli K-12. We demonstrate the presence of a rho-independent transcription terminator just 28 bp upstream of the main translation start codon and show that it is functional in vitro. Our data indicate that an as-yet-unknown mechanism of antitermination of transcription must be operative in earlier phases of growth. However, as bacterial cell cultures mature, progressively fewer transcripts are able to bypass this terminator. In the K-12 leader sequence, two in-frame translation initiation codons have been identified, one upstream and the other downstream of the transcription terminator. For optimal agn43 expression, both codons need to be present. Translation from the upstream start codon leads to increased downstream agn43 expression. Our findings have revealed two novel modes of regulation of agn43 expression in the leader RNA in addition to the previously well-characterized regulation of phase variation at the agn43 promoter.

Reduced capacity of alternative sigmas to melt promoters ensures stringent promoter recognition

In bacteria, multiple sigmas direct RNA polymerase to distinct sets of promoters. Housekeeping sigmas direct transcription from thousands of promoters, whereas most alternative sigmas are more selective, recognizing more highly conserved promoter motifs. For sigma(32) and sigma(28), two Escherichia coli Group 3 sigmas, altering a few residues in Region 2.3, the portion of sigma implicated in promoter melting, to those universally conserved in housekeeping sigmas relaxed their stringent promoter requirements and significantly enhanced melting of suboptimal promoters. All Group 3 sigmas and the more divergent Group 4 sigmas have nonconserved amino acids at these positions and rarely transcribe >100 promoters. We suggest that the balance of "melting" and "recognition" functions of sigmas is critical to setting the stringency of promoter recognition. Divergent sigmas may generally use a nonoptimal Region 2.3 to increase promoter stringency, enabling them to mount a focused response to altered conditions.