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Regulation of the Cellulosomal celS (cel48A) Gene of Clostridium thermocellum Is Growth Rate Dependent

Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology and Institute of Catalysis Science and Technology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa,¹ Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot,² Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel³

Received 30 December 2002/ Accepted 7 March 2003

Clostridium thermocellum produces an extracellular multienzyme complex, termed cellulosome, that allows efficient solubilization of crystalline cellulose. One of the major enzymes in this complex is the CelS (Cel48A) exoglucanase. The regulation of CelS at the protein and transcriptional levels was studied using batch and continuous cultures. The results of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Western blot analyses indicated that the amount of CelS in the supernatant fluids of cellobiose-grown cultures is lower than that of cellulose-grown cultures. The transcriptional level of celS mRNA was determined quantitatively by RNase protection assays with batch and continuous cultures under carbon and nitrogen limitation. The amount of celS mRNA transcripts per cell was about 180 for cells grown under carbon limitation at growth rates of 0.04 to 0.21 h^-1 and 80 and 30 transcripts per cell for batch cultures at growth rates of 0.23 and 0.35 h^-1, respectively. Under nitrogen limitation, the corresponding levels were 110, 40, and 30 transcripts/cell for growth rates of 0.07, 0.11, and 0.14 h^-1, respectively. Two major transcriptional start sites were detected at positions -140 and -145 bp, upstream of the translational start site of the celS gene. The potential promoters exhibited homology to known sigma factors (i.e., ^A and ^B) of Bacillus subtilis. The relative activity of the two promoters remained constant under the conditions studied and was in agreement with the results of the RNase protection assay, in which the observed transcriptional activity was inversely proportional to the growth rate.

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