FIG. 6.

Nucleotide alignment of upstream regions of SarA-regulated genes of S. aureus. Alignments are based on homology of the noncoding regions 5′ of SarA-controlled genes to the proposed 29-bp SarA binding site (19) of the agr P2-P3 regulatory region (accession no. X52543 [50]). Best identity (58.6 to 72.4% identity over 29 bp to the agr sequence) was observed in AT-rich regions of tst (accession no. U93688), spa (accession no. J01786 [64]), hlb (accession no. X13404 [55]), seb (accession no. M11118 [37]), V8 protease (accession no. P04188 [11]), and hla (accession no. X01645 [28]). The distances of the hypothetical SarA binding site from transcriptional start (TS) sites are indicated where known. The 3′ ends of the tst, hlb, V8 protease, and hla sequences are located 145, 61, 9, and 270 bp upstream of their translational start sites. Nucleotides showing >50% identity over seven sequences are boxed in black. A predicted consensus sequence is indicated by upper- and lowercase letters representing 100 and >50% nucleotide identity, respectively, over the seven sequences.