Abstract
ntr (nitrogen regulated) and nif (nitrogen fixation) promoters are structurally similar to each other but bear no resemblance to canonic Escherichia coli promoters. ntr promoters are normally activated by the ntrC (glnG) product, but they can also be activated by the ntrC-related Klebsiella pneumoniae nifA product. In contrast, nif promoters of K. pneumoniae such as the nitrogenase (nifH) promoter can only be nifA activated. In this paper, we report the isolation and characterization of 28 mutants of the K. pneumoniae nifH promoter. Class A mutants no longer respond to nifA-mediated transcription, and class B mutants can now respond to ntrC-mediated activation. These two classes of mutants define sequences important to nifA- and ntrC-mediated transcription. Most surprising is that a single base change is sufficient to convert a nifA-activated promoter into an ntrC-activated one.
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Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
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