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. 1986 May 27;14(10):4207–4227. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.10.4207

Activation of the Bradyrhizobium japonicum nifH and nifDK operons is dependent on promoter-upstream DNA sequences.

A Alvarez-Morales, M Betancourt-Alvarez, K Kaluza, H Hennecke
PMCID: PMC339856  PMID: 3086837

Abstract

Previous analysis of B. japonicum nifH'- and nifD'-'lacZ translational fusions showed that these promoters could be activated by the K. pneumoniae nifA plus the E. coli ntrA gene products. To study the functions of the DNA 5' to these promoters, plasmids carrying deletions in this region were constructed and analyzed in vivo in a heterologous system consisting of an E. coli (NtrA+) background with a plasmid that constitutively expresses the K. pneumoniae nifA gene. Activation of the B. japonicum promoters was completely dependent on sequences located between positions -165 and -100, relative to the start of transcription. Some of the nifD deletion-fusions were mobilized to the wild-type B. japonicum and the exconjugants tested in an ex planta micro-aerobic system, and also used to infect soybean seedlings. The time course of derepression was followed by assaying beta-galactosidase activity from samples withdrawn from the microaerobic cultures or from root-nodule extracts. The results conclusively show that in the homologous system the sequences upstream of the promoter are required to achieve wild-type activity.

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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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