Summary
By Northern blot and primer extension analyses it was shown that inBacillus stearothermophilus the genesinfC, rpmI andrplT constitute a single transcriptional unit; the promoter and the transcriptional start-point used in vivo were identified and the half-life of the transcript (1.2 min) was determined. No indication of multiple initiation sites nor of differential stability of different regions of the transcript was found. The results suggest thatEscherichia coli andB. stearothermophilus have a different pattern of transcription around theinfC gene cluster and that differential translational efficiency within theinfC-rpmI-rplT transcriptional unit accounts for the different levels of 1173, L35 and L20 expression. The rare AUU initiation codon is the only strictly conserved element of the several peculiar transcriptional and translational features found inE. coli infC. Upon changing this codon to AUG, we found a ca. 30-fold increased expression ofB. stearothermophilus infC, which is similar to that previously found withE. coli infC (i.e. 40-fold), and provided evidence that regulation ofinfC expression through its rare AUU initiation codon might be a general phenomenon in bacteria.
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Communicated by J.W. Lengeler
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Falconi, M., Brombach, M., Gualerzi, C.O. et al. In vivo transcriptional pattern in theinfC operon ofBacillus stearotbermophilus . Molec. Gen. Genet. 227, 60–64 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00260707
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00260707