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Extended –10 Motif Is Critical for Activity of the cspA Promoter but Does Not Contribute to Low-Temperature Transcription

Department of Biochemistry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 675 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854,¹ Waksman Institute, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 190 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854²

Received 2 May 2005/ Accepted 20 June 2005

Bacterial promoters belonging to the extended –10 class contain a conserved TGn motif upstream of the –10 promoter consensus element. Open promoter complexes can be formed on some extended –10 Escherichia coli promoters at temperatures as low as 6°C, when complexes on most promoters are closed. The promoter of cspA, a gene that codes for the major cold shock protein CspA of E. coli, contains an extended –10 motif. CspA is dramatically induced upon temperature downshift from 37 to 15°C, and its cold shock induction has been attributed to transcription, translation, and mRNA stabilization effects. Here, we show that though the extended –10 motif is critical for high-level expression of cspA, it does not contribute to low-temperature expression. In fact, transcription from the wild-type cspA promoter is cold sensitive in vitro and in vivo. Thus, transcription appears to play little or no role in low-temperature induction of cspA expression.

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