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Journal of Bacteriology, August 1998, p. 3828-3836, Vol. 180, No. 15
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Transcriptional Analysis of Different Promoters in
the sar Locus in Staphylococcus
aureus
Adhar C.
Manna,
Manfred
G.
Bayer, and
Ambrose L.
Cheung*
Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and
Immunology, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021
Received 19 November 1997/Accepted 11 May 1998
The expression of extracellular virulence determinants in
Staphylococcus aureus is controlled by a
510-nucleotide RNA molecule (RNAIII) which is a part of the
agr system. The agr operon, which encodes
a multicomponent signal transduction system, is partially under the influence of an unlinked regulatory locus called
sar. The sar locus is composed of three
overlapping transcripts, designated sarA (0.56 kb),
sarC (0.8 kb), and sarB (1.2 kb), originating from the P1, P3, and P2 promoters, respectively. In this study, we
analyzed the differential expression of these promoters by using
transcriptional fusion with the xylE reporter gene to study the activation of the sar locus. The data confirm the
existence of three independent promoters with different promoter
activities. Maximal promoter activity was observed with the combined
fusion of P2-P3-P1 promoters.
Expression studies with a sigB mutant revealed that the P3
promoter is SigB dependent. Analysis of these transcriptional fusions
in a sarA mutant and in complemented strains with each of
the sar transcriptional units revealed that the
sar locus is autoregulatory, with SarA acting as a positive
regulator. From various transcriptional fusion studies of the upstream
region of the P1 promoter, we have localized a 34-bp sequence which
seems to play a role in down-modulating P1 transcription. Using
heparin-Sepharose and DNA-specific columns, we partially purified a
12-kDa protein, possibly a repressor, which binds to the promoter
regions upstream of P2 and P1 and which also binds to the 34-bp
sequence. These data indicated that the regulation of the
sar locus is complex and may involve the sar
gene product(s) and other regulatory protein(s).
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of
Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Ave., New York, NY 10021. Phone: (212) 327-8163. Fax: (212) 327-7584. E-mail: cheunga{at}rockvax.rockefeller.edu.
Journal of Bacteriology, August 1998, p. 3828-3836, Vol. 180, No. 15
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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