E. Kitamura et al., ACIDIC-PHOSPHOLIPID DEFICIENCY REPRESSES THE FLAGELLAR MASTER OPERON THROUGH A NOVEL REGULATORY REGION IN ESCHERICHIA-COLI, Bioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry, 58(12), 1994, pp. 2305-2307
The Escherichia coli pgsA3 mutation, which causes acidic-phospholipid
deficiency, was found to repress the flagellar master operon, as asses
sed by the beta-galactosidase activities of flhD-lacZ fusions. This ex
plained the impairment of flagellar formation and motility by the muta
tion. A series of deletion analysis indicated that a 40-bp region, at
the 5' end of the flhD locus examined, was responsible for the repress
ion of a downstream transcription initiation that was catabolite-repre
ssion sensitive. This novel regulatory region was 200 bp upstream of t
he first possible translation initiation site.