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J Bacteriol, April 1998, p. 1855-1861, Vol. 180, No. 7
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Characterization of a Novel Member of the DegS-DegU Regulon Affected by Salt Stress in Bacillus subtilis

Véronique Dartois,* Michel Débarbouillé, Frank Kunst, and Georges Rapoport

Unité de Biochimie Microbienne, URA 1300 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France

Received 7 October 1997/Accepted 22 January 1998

As a soil bacterium also found in estuarine and marine habitats, Bacillus subtilis has evolved various sensing and adaptation systems in order to face salt stress conditions. Among these regulatory mechanisms is the DegS-DegU signal transduction system, which was previously shown to be stimulated by high salt concentrations. A search for promoters regulated in response to salt stress led to the identification of wapA, encoding a wall-associated protein, which is strongly expressed at low salt concentrations and almost completely repressed in the presence of 0.7 M disodium succinate. Repression of wapA transcription by salt stress was shown to require the phosphorylated form of DegU. Moreover, DegU-mediated repression of wapA occurred only in high-salt medium. Alignment between the control region of wapA and other DegU-regulated promoters allowed the identification of a putative DegU target sequence, AGAAN11TTCAG. Mutation/deletion analyses of the wapA promoter region confirmed the role of the putative DegU control site in repression of wapA transcription at high salt concentrations and revealed a second site of repression located downstream from the transcription start site. Since residual negative control was observed at this second site in the absence of DegU, it seems likely that an additional repressor acts on the wapA control region to further downregulate wapA transcription under salt stress conditions.

* Corresponding author. Present address: MicroGenomics, Inc., 11211 Sorrento Valley Rd., Suite Q, San Diego, CA 92121. Phone: (619) 457 8387. Fax: (619) 457 8375. E-mail: vdartois{at}microgenomics.com.




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