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Journal of Bacteriology, April 2004, p. 2511-2514, Vol. 186, No. 8
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.8.2511-2514.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Control of Expression of the Arginine Deiminase Operon of Streptococcus gordonii by CcpA and Flp
Yiqian Dong, Yi-Ywan M. Chen, and R. A. Burne*
Department of Oral Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610
Received 22 October 2003/
Accepted 2 January 2004

ABSTRACT
In
Streptococcus gordonii DL1, inactivation of the
ccpA gene
and a gene encoding an Fnr-like protein (Flp) demonstrated that
CcpA was essential for carbohydrate catabolite repression and
that Flp was required for optimal expression and anaerobic induction
of the arginine deiminase system.

TEXT
The arginine deiminase system (ADS) (encoded by the
arc operon)
is a multienzyme pathway that catalyzes the conversion of arginine
to ornithine, ammonia, and CO
2, with the concomitant production
of ATP. The ADS is widely distributed among prokaryotes, and
the primary structures of the enzymes involved in the AD pathway
have been reasonably conserved throughout evolution. However,
the genetic regulation characteristics of ADS differ among organisms.
For instance, both
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (
17) and
Bacillus licheniformis (
26) utilize the ADS exclusively under anaerobic
conditions through a transcriptional regulator belonging to
the Anr (for "anaerobic regulation of arginine catabolism and
nitrate reduction")/Fnr (for "fumarate nitrate reductase") family.
Induction by Anr/Fnr can be further enhanced in the presence
of arginine by ArgR, the transcriptional regulator. In some
lactic acid bacteria, such as
Streptococcus sanguis (
8) and
Lactobacillus sakei (
31), the expression of the operon is under
the control of carbon catabolite repression (CCR) and is inducible
by arginine; however, the mechanisms for CCR and arginine induction
are not fully understood. Furthermore, in some oral bacteria
(such as
S. sanguis NCTC10904 and
Streptococcus rattus FA-1)
the ADS can be repressed by aeration through an as-yet-undefined
pathway (
2). In the oral cavity, the ADS is one of two primary
pathways for ammonia generation. Ammonia produced by the ADS
can neutralize acids generated by bacterial glycolysis, thereby
increasing dental biofilm pH. The elevated pH induced by arginine
catabolism is thought to be important in inhibiting the development
of tooth decay and in modulating the composition of plaque (
1,
3). Among the comparatively few ADS-positive species that colonize
the mouth,
Streptococcus gordonii is one of the more abundant
organisms in tooth biofilms and makes up a significant portion
of healthy human supragingival dental plaque (
3,
19). Thus,
the ADS of
S. gordonii may play a critical role in the prevention
of dental caries.
Dong et al. previously reported that the arc operon in S. gordonii is arranged as arcABCDT. In addition to the genes encoding enzymes involved in the AD pathway, arcR, a gene encoding an activator for the arc operon, is located 3' to arcT and transcribed in the opposite orientation. We also showed that the expression of the S. gordonii arc operon is inducible by arginine and subject to CCR. Arginine induction is mediated in large part by the activity of ArcR, but the molecular basis for CCR of the arc operon has not been defined (7). In most gram-positive bacteria, binding of CcpA (for "catabolite control protein A") (13) to a palindromic sequence, the carbon catabolite response element, results in repression of CCR-sensitive operons (28). However, other pathways such as CcpB (4), CcpC (15), and phosphotransferase system-dependent CCR (exerted through phosphorylation of specific transcriptional regulators) are known to be involved in CCR of some gram-positive bacteria (10, 20, 27). To determine whether CcpA is the primary protein exerting CCR of arc operon expression in S. gordonii, an apparent CcpA homolog, which was identified from the partial S. gordonii genome database (The Institute for Genomic Research website [http://www.tigr.org]), was amplified by PCR using primers ccpA-S and ccpA-AS (Table 1), with S. gordonii DL1 chromosomal DNA as the template. An erythromycin resistance cassette was then cloned into the unique EcoRV site within the ccpA gene, and the resulting plasmid was used to transform S. gordonii to generate a CcpA-deficient derivative via double-crossover recombination. The arcA promoter (parcA) (obtained as a 337-bp fragment upstream of the arcA start codon by PCR with primers parcA5' and parcA3') (Table 1) was directly fused to a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene (cat) in plasmid pMC286, which was constructed by insertion of the promoterless cat gene from pC194 (14) into pGEM-Zf3(+) at BamHI and SphI sites. The fusion was constructed such that translation was driven from the arcA ribosome binding site. The transcriptional fusion was then released and cloned into pMJB8 (5), an S. gordonii integration vector that allows insertion of foreign DNA at the gtfG (glucosyltransferase gene) locus with the selection of a kanamycin-resistant phenotype. The construct was then used to transform wild-type and CcpA-deficient strains of S. gordonii. CAT activity (optical density at 600 nm
0.6 to 0.7) was measured in mid-exponential-phase cells grown in TY medium (29) with 10 mM glucose (a repressing sugar) or 10 mM galactose (a nonrepressing sugar) by the method of Shaw (24). In the wild-type background, the level of CAT activity in cells grown in TY medium with galactose was 17-fold higher than that seen with cells grown in TY medium with glucose (Table 2). In the CcpA-deficient strain, CCR was relieved and there was no significant difference in CAT activity between cells grown in galactose or glucose. These results indicated that (excluding other possible pathways such as those of CcpB, CcpC, and phosphotransferase system-dependent CCR) CcpA is the primary regulator for CCR of the arc operon in S. gordonii.
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TABLE 2. CAT-specific activities in wild-type and CcpA-deficient strains of S. gordonii/parcA-cat and wild-type and Flp-deficient strains of S. gordonii/parcA-cat under aerobic and anaerobic growth conditions
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After the incomplete
S. gordonii genome was searched, one 684-bp
open reading frame (ORF) (located 263 bp 5' to
arcA) was predicted
to code for a homologue of known proteins of the Crp/Fnr family,
which has been proven to be responsible for anaerobic versus
aerobic gene regulation in many gram-negative bacteria (
16,
17,
30) and in some gram-positive bacteria, including
Bacillus subtilis and
B. licheniformis (
6,
18). The proteins with the
most similarity to this ORF (
Streptococcus pyogenes SPY1548
[43% identical residues],
B. licheniformis ArcR [37% identical
residues],
P. aeruginosa Anr [23% identical residues],
L. sakei ArcR [34% identical residues], and
Enterococcus faecalis ArcE
[35% identical residues]) were putative members of the Crp/Fnr
family that were either linked to, or already shown to be involved
in,
arc regulation. Thus, we designated this ORF
flp (for "Fnr-like
protein") in
S. gordonii. A multiple-sequence alignment of Flp
and selected representatives of the Crp/Fnr family showed that
there are conserved residues throughout the proteins (Fig.
1).
Although the overall level of similarity between Flp and each
of the aligned proteins is not high, the predicted helix-turn-helix
motif located in the C-terminal part of the proteins is more
conserved. Of note, conserved residues (such as arginine and
glutamic acid) (
32) shown to be involved in recognition of the
DNA binding site by Crp were found in
S. gordonii Flp at positions
212 and 213 (Fig.
1). However, Flp in
S. gordonii has only two
cysteine residues instead of the four conserved cysteine residues
that are usually found in other Fnr homologues (
12,
21,
25).
To date, only two other known Fnr-like proteins containing two
cysteine residues that regulate the redox responses in
Lactococcus lactis and
Lactobacillus casei have been identified (
11,
23).
It was found that the
flp gene was preceded by a putative Shine-Dalgarno
sequence and began with an ATG codon. In addition, a putative
rho-independent terminator (5'-
TTTCTTTTTTTAGCAAAAACAAAGA
TTTTATAAAAAAATAAA-3'
[the bases forming the stem-loop are underlined]) was found
between
flp and
arcA (Fig.
2), in consistency with our finding
that
arc gene expression is driven from its own promoter (
7).
We also examined the two ORFs immediately 5' to the
flp gene
in
S. gordonii; these ORFs were revealed in BLAST searches to
be conserved hypothetical proteins.
To determine the function of Flp in regulation of
arc operon
expression,
flp was amplified by recombinant PCRs with primers
(Table
1) that were designed on the basis of the
flp sequence
identified from the partial sequence in the
S. gordonii genome
database. The introduction of a unique SmaI site 141 bp 3' to
the start codon of
flp allowed the subsequent cloning of a spectinomycin
resistance cassette into the
flp gene, and the resulting plasmid
was used to transform
S. gordonii to generate a Flp-deficient
derivative via double-crossover recombination. The p
arcA-cat fusion was then used to transform the Flp-deficient mutant and
wild-type
S. gordonii. Early-log-phase cells (optical density
at 600 nm

0.25 to 0.35) grown in TY medium containing 10 mM
galactose and 50 mM arginine under anaerobic conditions in a
GasPak jar (BBL), or with aeration by shaking at 300 rpm with
50 ml of culture in a 250-ml flask (
2), were harvested and used
to measure CAT activity. Inactivation of
flp resulted in 11-
and 4.3-fold decreases in CAT activity compared to the results
seen with the wild-type strain grown under anaerobic and aerobic
growth conditions (Table
2), respectively, which suggested that
Flp was an activator of
arc operon expression in
S. gordonii.
In the Flp-deficient strain, furthermore, CAT activity in cells
grown under anaerobic conditions was less than twofold higher
than that seen in aerobically grown cells compared to a fivefold
difference in the results seen with the wild-type strain, which
indicated Flp might be involved in anaerobic induction of the
ADS in
S. gordonii. So far, there is no evidence to indicate
that Flp is a global regulatory protein, as it is in
Escherichia coli and
P. aeruginosa (
9,
22,
30), but the possibility cannot
be excluded that Flp regulates genes other than the
arc operon.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by Public Health Service grant DE10362
from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: University of Florida, Department of Oral Biology, P.O. Box 100424, Gainesville, FL 32610-0424. Phone: (352) 392-4370. Fax: (352) 392-7357. E-mail:
rburne{at}dental.ufl.edu.


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Journal of Bacteriology, April 2004, p. 2511-2514, Vol. 186, No. 8
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.8.2511-2514.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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