Premium
Transcription of the halophage ΦH repressor gene is abolished by transcription from an inversely oriented lytic promoter
Author(s) -
Stolt Pelle,
Zillig Wolfram
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(94)00347-5
Subject(s) - lytic cycle , repressor , transcription (linguistics) , promoter , biology , gene , lysogenic cycle , temperateness , bacteriophage , microbiology and biotechnology , transcription factor , gene expression , genetics , virus , escherichia coli , linguistics , philosophy
The temperate phage ΦH of the extremely halophilic archaebacterium Halobacterium salinarium encodes a repressor, Rep, which in the immune state represses the production of an early lytic transcript, denoted T4. Rep acts at the transcriptional level by blocking the promoter for T4. The promoter for the rep gene itself is positioned back to back to the promoter for T4, in a manner analogous to that of the cI/cro genes in bacteriophage γ. Transcription of the rep gene does not occur when the phage is growing lytically. We show that this represson of rep transcription during lytic growth is due to the transcription per se from the stronger, oppositely oriented promoter for T4, without the need of a phage gene product.