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Antibiotics, arsenate and H 2 O 2 induce the promoter of Staphylococcus aureus cspC gene more strongly than cold
Author(s) -
Chanda Palas Kumar,
Mondal Rajkrishna,
Sau Keya,
Sau Subrata
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of basic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1521-4028
pISSN - 0233-111X
DOI - 10.1002/jobm.200800065
Subject(s) - cold shock domain , staphylococcus aureus , start codon , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , transcription (linguistics) , chemistry , biochemistry , messenger rna , rna , bacteria , genetics , linguistics , philosophy
Proteins expressed by the bacterial cold shock genes are highly conserved at sequence level and perform various biological functions in both the cold‐stressed and normal cells. To study the effects of various agents on the cold shock genes of Staphylococcus aureus , we have cloned the upstream region of cspC from S. aureus Newman and found that the above region possesses appreciable promoter ( P c ) activity even at 37 °C. A reporter S. aureus strain CHANDA2, constructed by inserting the P c ‐ lacZ transcriptional fusion into S. aureus RN4220 genome, was found to express very low level of β ‐galactosidase after cold shock, indicating that low temperature induces P c very weakly. Interestingly, transcription from P c was induced very strongly by several antibiotics, hydrogen peroxide and arsenate salt. Cold shock proteins expressed by S. aureus are highly identical at sequence level and bear single‐strand nucleic acid binding motifs. A 16 nt downstream box and a 13 nt upstream box were identified at the downstream of initiation codon and at the upstream of ribosome binding site of csp transcripts. Their roles in S. aureus cold shock gene expression have been discussed elaborately. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)