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. 1993 Jan;175(2):417–427. doi: 10.1128/jb.175.2.417-427.1993

Nucleotide sequence and initial functional characterization of the clcR gene encoding a LysR family activator of the clcABD chlorocatechol operon in Pseudomonas putida.

W M Coco 1, R K Rothmel 1, S Henikoff 1, A M Chakrabarty 1
PMCID: PMC196156  PMID: 8419291

Abstract

The 3-chlorocatechol operon clcABD is central to the biodegradative pathway of 3-chlorobenzoate. The clcR regulatory gene, which activates the clcABD operon, was cloned from the region immediately upstream of the operon and was shown to complement an insertion mutation for growth on 3-chlorobenzoate. ClcR activated the clcA promoter, which controls expression of the clcABD operon, in trans by 14-fold in an in vivo promoter probe assay in Pseudomonas putida when cells were incubated with 15 mM 3-chlorobenzoic acid. Specific binding of ClcR to the clcR-clcA intergenic promoter region was observed in a gel shift assay. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the clcR gene predicts a polypeptide of 32.5 kDa, which was confirmed by using specific in vivo 35S labeling of the protein from a T7 promoter-controlled ATG fusion construct. ClcR shares high sequence identity with the LysR family of bacterial regulator proteins and has especially high homology to a subgroup of the family consisting of TcbR (57% amino acid sequence identity), TfdS, CatR, and CatM. ClcR was shown to autoregulate its own production in trans to 35% of unrepressed levels but partially relieved this autorepression under conditions that induced transcription at the clcA promoter. Several considerations indicate that the clcR-clcABD locus is most similar to the tcbR-tcbCDEF regulon.

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Selected References

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