Journal of Bacteriology, January 2000, p. 216-220, Vol. 182, No. 1
0021-9193/0/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Department of Biochemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-4935,1 and Centro de Investigación sobre Fijación de Nitrógeno, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca A.P. 565-A, Morelos 62100, Mexico2
Received 19 July 1999/Accepted 6 October 1999
The pR and pRM promoters of bacteriophage lambda direct transcription in divergent directions from start sites separated by 83 phosphodiester bonds. We had previously shown that the presence of an RNA polymerase at pR interfered with open complex formation at pRM and that this effect was alleviated by the deletion of 10 bp between the two promoters. Here we present a detailed characterization of the dependence of the interference on the interpromoter distance. It was found that the reduced interference between the two promoters is unique to the 10-bp deletion. The relief of interference was demonstrated to be due to the facilitation of a step subsequent to RNA polymerase binding to the pRM promoter. A model to explain these observations is proposed. A search of known Escherichia coli promoters identified three pairs of divergent promoters with similar separations to those investigated here.
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