Regulated expression of the dinR and recA genes during competence development and SOS induction in Bacillus subtilis

Bert Jan Haijema, Douwe Van Sinderen, Kevin Winterling, Jan Kooistra, Gerard Venema*, Leendert Willem Hamoen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that the dinR gene product of Bacillus subtilis acts as a repressor of the SOS regulon by binding to DNA sequences located upstream of SOS genes, including dinR and recA. Following activation as a result of DNA damage, RecA is believed to catalyse DinR-autocleavage, thus derepressing the SOS regulon. The present results support this hypothesis: a dinR insertion mutation caused a high, constitutive expression of both dinR and recA, which could not be further elevated by SOS-induction. In addition, gel-retardation assays demonstrated a direct interaction between the dinR gene product and the recA and dinR promoter regions. Epistatic interactions and gel-retardation assays demonstrated that the previously reported competence-specific expression of recA directly depended upon the gene product of comK, the competence transcription factor. These data demonstrate the existence of a direct regulatory link between the competence signal-transduction pathway and the SOS regulon.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)75-85
Number of pages11
JournalMolecular Microbiology
Volume22
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Oct 1996
Externally publishedYes

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