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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2005, p. 8063-8080, Vol. 187, No. 23
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.187.23.8063-8080.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Genome-Wide Transcriptional Analysis of the Phosphate Starvation Stimulon of Bacillus subtilis

Nicholas E. E. Allenby,¹ Nicola O'Connor,² Zoltán Prágai,^2, Alan C. Ward,¹ Anil Wipat,³ and Colin R. Harwood^2*

Division of Biology,¹ Institute of Cell and Molecular Biosciences,² School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, United Kingdom³

Received 18 May 2005/ Accepted 18 August 2005

Bacillus subtilis responds to phosphate starvation stress by inducing the PhoP and SigB regulons. While the PhoP regulon provides a specific response to phosphate starvation stress, maximizing the acquisition of phosphate (P_i) from the environment and reducing the cellular requirement for this essential nutrient, the SigB regulon provides nonspecific resistance to stress by protecting essential cellular components, such as DNA and membranes. We have characterized the phosphate starvation stress response of B. subtilis at a genome-wide level using DNA macroarrays. A combination of outlier and cluster analyses identified putative new members of the PhoP regulon, namely, yfkN (2',3' cyclic nucleotide 2'-phosphodiesterase), yurI (RNase), yjdB (unknown), and vpr (extracellular serine protease). YurI is thought to be responsible for the nonspecific degradation of RNA, while the activity of YfkN on various nucleotide phosphates suggests that it could act on substrates liberated by YurI, which produces 3' or 5' phosphoribonucleotides. The putative new PhoP regulon members are either known or predicted to be secreted and are likely to be important for the recovery of inorganic phosphate from a variety of organic sources of phosphate in the environment.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Present address: Department of Biotechnology, DSM Nutritional Product, Ltd., VFB, Bldg. 203/24A, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland.

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