A carboxy-terminal 16-amino-acid region of sigma(38) of Escherichia coli is important for transcription under high-salt conditions and sigma activities in vivo
M. Ohnuma et al., A carboxy-terminal 16-amino-acid region of sigma(38) of Escherichia coli is important for transcription under high-salt conditions and sigma activities in vivo, J BACT, 182(16), 2000, pp. 4628-4631
sigma(38) (or sigma(s), the rpoS gene product) is a sigma subunit of RNA po
lymerase in Escherichia coli and directs transcription from a number of sta
tionary-phase promoters as well as osmotically inducible promoters. In this
study, we analyzed the function of the carboxy-terminal 16-amino-acid regi
on of sigma(38) (residues 315 to 330), which is well conserved among the rp
oS gene products of enteric bacterial species. Truncation of this region wa
s shown to result in the loss of sigma activity in vivo using promoter-lacZ
fusion constructs, but the mutant sigma(38) retained the binding activity
in vivo to the core enzyme. The in vitro transcription analysis revealed th
at the transcription activity of sigma(38) holoenzyme under high potassium
glutamate concentrations was significantly decreased by the truncation of t
he carboxy-terminal tail element.