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Regulation of Major Cellulosomal Endoglucanases of Clostridium thermocellum Differs from That of a Prominent Cellulosomal Xylanase

Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering 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 3 November 2004/ Accepted 31 December 2004

The expression of scaffoldin-anchoring genes and one of the major processive endoglucanases (CelS) from the cellulosome of Clostridium thermocellum has been shown to be dependent on the growth rate. For the present work, we studied the gene regulation of selected cellulosomal endoglucanases and a major xylanase in order to examine the previously observed substrate-linked alterations in cellulosome composition. For this purpose, the transcript levels of genes encoding endoglucanases CelB, CelG, and CelD and the family 10 xylanase XynC were determined in batch cultures, grown on either cellobiose or cellulose, and in carbon-limited continuous cultures at different dilution rates. Under all conditions tested, the transcript levels of celB and celG were at least 10-fold higher than that of celD. Like the major processive endoglucanase CelS, the transcript levels of these endoglucanase genes were also dependent on the growth rate. Thus, at a rate of 0.04 h^–1, the levels of celB, celG, and celD were threefold higher than those obtained in cultures grown at maximal rates (0.35 h^–1) on cellobiose. In contrast, no clear correlation was observed between the transcript level of xynC and the growth rate—the levels remained relatively high, fluctuating between 30 and 50 transcripts per cell. The results suggest that the regulation of C. thermocellum endoglucanases is similar to that of the processive endoglucanase celS but differs from that of a major cellulosomal xylanase in that expression of the latter enzyme is independent of the growth rate.

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