Regulation of cid and lrg expression by CodY in Streptococcus mutans

The ability of Streptococcus mutans to persist in a variety of adverse environments and to emerge as a numerically dominant member of stable oral biofilm communities are essential elements for its cariogenicity. The S. mutans Cid/Lrg system has been studied as a key player in the integration of complex environmental signals into regulatory networks that modulate virulence and cell homeostasis. Cid/Lrg has also been shown to be closely associated with metabolic pathways of this organism, due to distinct patterns of cid and lrg expression in response to growth phase and glucose/oxygen levels. In this study, a comparison of cid and lrg promoter regions with conserved CodY (a regulator which responds to starvation stress)‐binding motifs revealed the presence of a potential CodY‐binding site, which is arranged similarly in both cid and lrg promoters. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) and promoter reporter assays demonstrated that expression of the cid and lrg operons is directly mediated by the global transcriptional regulator CodY. DNase I footprinting analyses confirmed the predicted binding sequences for CodY in both the cid and the lrg promoter regions. Overexpression of CodY had no obvious effect on lrgAB expression, but deficiency of CodY still affected lrgAB expression in a lytST ‐overexpressing strain, suggesting that CodY is required for the full regulation of lrgAB by LytST. We also demonstrated that both CodY and CcpA are involved in regulating pyruvate flux and utilization. Collectively, these data show that CodY directly regulates cid and lrg expression, and together with CcpA (previously shown to directly regulate cid and lrg promoters) contributes to coordinating pyruvate uptake and utilization in response to both the external environment and the cellular metabolic status.