Exp Mol Med.  2004 Dec;36(6):510-514.

The upstream sequence of Mycobacterium leprae 18-kDa gene confers transcription repression activity in orientation-independent manner

• Kim HB
• You JC

Abstract

In order to understand the role of the upstream region of the Mycobacterium leprae 18-kDa gene on the gene regulation, the region was divided into two at the -50 position from the first start codon of the gene and their effect on transcription was examined by using a LacZ transcriptional reporter gene assay. The presence of each of these two regions conferred transcription repression not only on its cognate M. lepraerae 18-kDa gene promoter, but also on a heterologous promoter such as the Mycobacterium bovis BCG hsp65 gene promoter. Moreover, it was found that these regions could confer transcription repression activity in both cases in an orientation-independent manner. Thus, these results indicate that the upstream region of the M. leprae 18-kDa gene harbors transcription repression responsive element(s) acting as an operator and can be further divided into two separately functional regions, suggesting a bipartite structure of the element(s). The identification of transcription repression activity of the upstream region in the M. leprae 18-kDa gene will contribute greatly for the understanding of the 18-kDa gene regulation mechanism, and provide also useful information for the manipulation of mycobacterium gene expression.

Keyword

gene expression regulation; genes, bacterial; M. leprae; promoter regions

MeSH Terms

Bacterial Proteins/*genetics
Down-Regulation/*genetics
*Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
Mycobacterium leprae/*genetics
Response Elements/*genetics
Transcription, Genetic