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Journal of Bacteriology, June 2004, p . 3848-3854, Vol . 186,
No . 12
The
Arginine Regulatory Protein Mediates Repression by Arginine of the Operons
Encoding Glutamate Synthase and Anabolic Glutamate Dehydrogenase in
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Shehab Hashim,1 Dong-Hyeon Kwon,2 Ahmed
Abdelal,3 and Chung-Dar Lu1*
Department of Biology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303,1
Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
02115-5000,3 VA Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston,
Texas 770302
Received 10 December 2003/ Accepted 25 February 2004
The arginine regulatory protein of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, ArgR,
is essential for induction of operons that encode enzymes of
the arginine succinyltransferase (AST) pathway, which is the primary
route for arginine utilization by this organism under aerobic
conditions . ArgR also induces the operon that encodes a catabolic NAD+-dependent
glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), which converts L-glutamate,
the product of the AST pathway, in
-ketoglutarate .
The studies reported here show that ArgR also participates in
the regulation of other enzymes of glutamate metabolism . Exogenous
arginine repressed the specific activities of glutamate synthase
(GltBD) and anabolic NADP-dependent GDH (GdhA) in cell extracts of
strain PAO1, and this repression was abolished in an argR
mutant . The promoter regions of the gltBD operon, which encodes
GltBD, and the gdhA gene, which encodes GdhA, were identified
by primer extension experiments . Measurements of ß-galactosidase
expression from gltB::lacZ and gdhA::lacZ
translational fusions confirmed the role of ArgR in mediating
arginine repression . Gel retardation assays demonstrated the binding
of homogeneous ArgR to DNA fragments carrying the regulatory regions
for the gltBD and gdhA genes . DNase I footprinting
experiments showed that ArgR protects DNA sequences in the control
regions for these genes that are homologous to the consensus sequence
of the ArgR binding site . In silica analysis of genomic information
for P . fluorescens, P . putida, and P.
stutzeri suggests that the findings reported here regarding
ArgR regulation of operons that encode enzymes of glutamate
biosynthesis in P . aeruginosa likely apply to other
pseudomonads .
The arginine succinyltransferase (AST) pathway (Fig . 1) is the
major route for arginine catabolism under aerobic conditions in
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, This pathway converts L-arginine
into L-glutamate with the concomitant release of
three nitrogen moieties (11, 13,
14) . Utilization of arginine as a carbon source
entails deamination of glutamate to
-ketoglutarate,
which is then channeled into the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle . We
have recently reported (18) the cloning and
characterization of gdhB, which encodes a novel NAD+-dependent
glutamate dehydrogenase (NAD-GDH; GdhB) . The expression of gdhB
was shown to be inducible by exogenous arginine, and this induction
was mediated by ArgR, the arginine regulatory protein . The activity
of GdhB, a tetramer of equal 180-kDa subunits, was also found to be
subject to allosteric activation by arginine . The induction of
gdhB expression and the activation by arginine of the encoded
enzyme clearly serve as mechanisms that coordinate aerobic
utilization of arginine as a carbon source with glutamate utilization
via the TCA cycle .
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FIG . 1 . The AST pathway and glutamate biosynthesis in P .
aeruginosa PAO1 . Only key intermediates and enzymes related to this
report are shown . NADP-GDH (GdhA), anabolic NADP-dependent GDH; NAD-GDH
(GdhB), catabolic NAD-dependent GDH; GOGAT, GltBD; Glu, glutamate,
-KG,
-ketoglutarate;
CoA, coenzyme A.
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The ArgR protein of P . aeruginosa does not exhibit any sequence
homology to the arginine regulatory proteins from enteric bacteria
(17, 19) or Bacillus subtilis
(5) . Rather, ArgR of P . aeruginosa is
a member of the AraC/XylS family of transcriptional regulators (27)
and functions like other members of this family (8), both
as a transcriptional repressor and as an activator in control
of operons responsible for arginine uptake and metabolism (20,
23, 24, 27) . The
operon that encodes ArgR of P . aeruginosa is
autoinduced in the presence of exogenous arginine and is subject to
carbon catabolite repression (23) .
As a nitrogen source, the nitrogen moieties released from arginine
via the AST pathway are used either by transamination into glutamate
or by ammonia assimilation . Similar to enteric bacteria (28),
ammonia assimilation in P . aeruginosa is catalyzed by an
NADP-dependent GDH (NADP-GDH; GdhA) when the ammonia supply is high
and by the combined actions of glutamine synthetase (GS) and
glutamate synthase (GOGAT; GltBD) when the ammonia supply is limited .
The presence of these three enzymes for ammonia assimilation
has been demonstrated in P . aeruginosa (4,
15) . While the corresponding genes have not been
characterized, they are annotated in the finished genome project on
the basis of sequence homology of the derived amino acid sequences
(PAO1 Genome Annotation Project;
www.pseudomonas.com) .
The finding that gdhB, which is required for utilization of
arginine (and glutamate) as a carbon source, is a member of the ArgR
regulon in P . aeruginosa raised the intriguing question
of whether ArgR also plays a role in controlling the expression of
genes responsible for utilization of arginine as a nitrogen source .
This paper reports studies that demonstrate that ArgR indeed mediates
repression by arginine of the gltBD and gdhA genes . In
addition, gltBD and gdhA are shown to be subject to
regulation by the availability of glutamate and ammonia .
Bacterial strains, media, and growth conditions. The bacterial
strains and plasmids used in this study are listed in Table
1 . Luria-Bertani (LB) enriched medium (30)
was used with the following supplements as required: ampicillin at 50
µg/ml (Escherichia coli); carbenicillin at 200 µg/ml (P.
aeruginosa); gentamicin at 100 µg/ml; streptomycin at 500
µg/ml; and 5-bromo-3-indolyl-ß-D-galactopyranoside
(X-Gal) at 0.03% (wt/vol) . Minimal medium P, described by Haas
et al . (12), and minimal medium E (30)
were used for the growth of P . aeruginosa and E.
coli, respectively .
| TABLE 1 . Strains and plasmids used in this study
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Gel retardation assays. Homogeneous ArgR purified as previously
described (31) was mixed at various concentrations
with an end-labeled DNA fragment (10–11 M) in a reaction mixture
(total volume, 20 µl) containing 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), 50 mM KCl,
1 mM EDTA, 50 µg of bovine serum albumin per ml, and 10 ng of sheared
salmon sperm DNA . The reaction mixture was incubated at room
temperature for 20 min and applied to a 5% (wt/vol) polyacrylamide
gel in Tris-acetate-EDTA buffer .
DNA probes containing the regulatory regions of gltBD and gdhA
(Fig . 2) were amplified by PCR from pKB41 or genomic DNA
of PAO1 with the following synthetic primers designed to generate
HindIII or SmaI restriction sites: for gltBD,
5'-TCGGCCAGGCGCATTGATC-3' and 5'-CTGCCCGGGGGCGATCAGGCCAAATCC-3'; for
gdhA, 5'-GCGAAGCTTAGACCCGGCCGTAGGTA-3' and
5'-GAAAGCGTCGACGGATTTGCGT-3' . The PCR products were purified from a
1% (wt/vol) agarose gel and labeled at the 5' end with either [ -32P]ATP
by T4 nucleotide kinase or [ -32P]dATP
by Klenow fragment .
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FIG . 2 . Nucleotide sequences of P . aeruginosa promoters
and flanking regions for gltBD (a) and gdhA (b) . The
transcriptional initiation sites are indicated by +1 above the
nucleotides, and the –10 and –35 regions of each promoter are labeled
accordingly . The hypersymmetric sequences marked by convergent arrows
are possible rho-independent transcriptional terminators . The
ArgR-binding sites determined in this study are underlined, and the
bases identical to the consensus sequence 5'-TGTCGCN6GNAAN5-3'
on the complementary strand are shown by bold italics.
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Enzyme assays. GOGAT and anabolic GDH activities were assayed
at 37°C by measuring the initial rates of NADPH oxidation at 340 nm (21) .
The reaction mixture (2 ml) contained 0.35 mM NADPH, 5 mM sodium
-ketoglutarate,
100 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), and 20 mM L-glutamine
for GltBD or 20 mM NH4Cl for GdhA . Reactions were started by
addition of glutamate . The specific activities are expressed as
nanomoles of NADPH oxidized per minute per milligram of protein .
Protein concentration was determined by the method of Bradford (3)
with bovine serum albumin as the standard . ß-Galactosidase activity
was determined by the method of Miller (22) .
Purification of GOGAT. GOGAT of P . aeruginosa
was purified from a strain of E . coli DH5
harboring a high-copy-number plasmid, pKB41 (Table 1),
carrying the gltBD genes (16) . Cultures
were grown in LB medium (2 liters) for maximal repression of
chromosomally encoded E . coli GltBD (34) .
Cells were suspended in 20 mM potassium phosphate buffer (PPB), pH
7.6, containing 1 mM EDTA at a ratio of 1 g of cells to 2 ml of
buffer . Phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride was added to a final
concentration of 1 mM immediately prior to the passage of cells
through an AMINCO French pressure cell at 800 lb/in2 . The
cell debris was removed by centrifugation at 48,000
x g for 30 min . Streptomycin sulfate (1 g/100 ml) was
added to the supernatant at 0°C with stirring and equilibrated for 30
min . After centrifugation at 48,000 x
g for 30 min, the supernatant was subjected to ammonium
sulfate fractionation . The fraction precipitating between 30 and 45%
saturation was dissolved in 50 ml of 20 mM PPB . This solution was
filtered through a Millipore membrane (0.2 µm pore size) and applied
to a Pharmacia Mono Q column (HR 10/10) previously equilibrated with
20 mM PPB . GltBD was eluted with a linear gradient of KCl . Fractions
containing GltBD activity (0.33 to 0.35 M KCl) were combined,
concentrated by precipitation with 70% ammonium sulfate, and
dissolved in a minimal volume of 0.1 M potassium phosphate (pH 7.6) .
The solution was applied to a Pharmacia Superose 6 gel filtration
column (H/R 10/30) equilibrated with 0.1 M PPB . Fractions containing
GltBD were combined, diluted to 20 mM PPB, and then applied to a
Pharmacia HiTrap heparin column equilibrated with 20 mM PPB .
Following gradient elution with KCl, fractions containing GltBD
activity were combined and dialyzed against buffer containing 20 mM
potassium-HEPES (pH 7.2), 2 mM
-ketoglutarate,
and 1 mM EDTA .
Determination of amino-terminal amino acid sequence.
Purified GltBD (2 µg) was applied to a (wt/vol) sodium dodecyl
sulfate (SDS)-5% polyacrylamide gel, and the constituent subunits
were separated by electrophoresis at 100 V for 2 h . After
electrophoresis, the large and small subunits were transferred to a
polyvinylidene difluoride membrane with the LKB 2051 Midget MultiBlot
electrophoretic transfer unit . The amino-terminal amino acid
sequences of the separated subunits were determined by Edman
degradation with a protein sequencer at the Molecular Genetics
Facility of Georgia State University .
Construction of a gltB::lacZ and gdhA::lacZ
translational fusions. DNA fragments containing the regulatory regions
of gltBD and gdhA (Fig . 2) were
amplified by PCR from pKB41 or genomic DNA of PAO1 with the following
synthetic oligonucleotides designed to generate HindIII or SmaI
restriction sites: for gltBD, 5'-TCGGCCAGGCGCATTGATC-3' and
5'-CTGCCCGGGGGCGATCAGGCCAAATCC-3'; for gdhA,
5'-GCGAAGCTTAGACCCGGCCGTAGGTA-3' and 5'-GAAAGCGTCGACGGATTTGCGT-3' .
The PCR products were purified from a 1% (wt/vol) agarose gel,
digested by restriction endonucleases HindIII and SmaI, and ligated
to the corresponding sites of lacZ translational fusion vector
pQF52 (Table 1) . The nucleotide sequences of the
resulting constructs, pKB39 and pSH1 for gltBD and gdhA,
respectively, were verified by nucleotide sequence determination .
Gene replacement. A 1.6-kb EcoRI fragment containing the
gentamicin resistance (Gmr) cassette was isolated from
plasmid pGM 1
(31) by agarose gel electrophoresis and cloned
into the EcoRI site of gltD on pKB41 containing the entire
gltBD operon . The resulting plasmid containing the gltD::Gmr
region was digested by KpnI and cloned into the KpnI site of a
conjugation vector, pRTP1-M (32) . The resulting
gene replacement plasmid was mobilized into a spontaneous
streptomycin-resistant P . aeruginosa strain, PAO1-Sm, by
biparental plate mating with E . coli SM10 as described
by Gambello and Iglewski (9) . Following incubation
at 37°C for 16 h, transconjugants were selected on LB plates
supplemented with gentamicin (250 µg/ml) and streptomycin (500
µg/ml) .
Nucleotide sequence accession number. The sequences of
gltBD and the flanking regions from P . aeruginosa
have been deposited in the GenBank database under accession number
U81261 .
The gltBD operon encodes the two unequal subunits of GOGAT .
The gltBD operon of PAO1 has been cloned and sequenced previously
by Kwon and Abdelal (16) . The open reading frames of
the gltB and gltD genes have coding capacities for
polypeptides of 161.6 and 52.6 kDa, respectively . The derived amino
acid sequences of GltB and GltD of PAO1 exhibit 75 and 80% sequence
similarity (data not shown), respectively, to the large and small
subunits of GOGAT of E . coli (25) .
The gltBD operon of PAO1 is separated by two putative
rho-independent terminators from an upstream PA5037 gene, which
encodes a hypothetical protein, and from the downstream hemE
gene, which encodes uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (PAO1 genome
annotation project; www.pseudomonas.com) .
GOGAT (GltBD) of P . aeruginosa was purified from a recombinant
E . coli strain carrying pKB41 (Table 1) grown
under conditions (LB medium) in which the host GltBD is maximally
repressed . Interestingly, GltBD from P . aeruginosa
binds to heparin and such binding greatly facilitated its
purification from this organism . The large and small subunits of
GltBD were separated by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and
the first 17 amino acid residues of the amino termini were
determined . The amino-terminal sequences of GltB and GltD were
XGFGLIAHMQGEPSHQL and SERLNSDRLNNDFQFIE, respectively . Comparison of
these sequences to the derived sequences in Fig . 2a
indicated that the first 14 residues of the translated GltB sequence
are absent and that the purified GltB protein has a terminal cysteine
residue, which normally cannot be detected by a protein sequencer .
Similar amino-terminal processing of GltB has been reported for E.
coli (25) . In the case of GltD, comparison
of the derived sequence to the determined sequence indicated that the
first methionine residue of GltD was removed . The molecular masses of
GltB and GltD were estimated to be 162 and 54 kDa, respectively, from
a plot of electrophoretic mobility in SDS-15% polyacrylamide
gel against the logarithm of molecular masses of known polypeptides .
These values are in good agreement with those calculated from the
derived sequences . The molecular mass of GltBD of P . aeruginosa
was estimated by molecular sieving to be 230 kDa, indicating
that the native enzyme is a single heterodimer . In contrast, the
native GltBD protein of E . coli self-associates into a tetrameric
form (25) . Furthermore, unpublished work done in this
laboratory showed that GltBD of E . coli did not bind to
heparin or to DNA, unlike GltBD of P . aeruginosa, which
binds to heparin (this study) and has been found earlier to bind
certain DNA fragments (16) . The possible
significance of these differences between the two enzymes from P.
aeruginosa and E . coli are under investigation .
Identification of gltBD and gdhA promoters.
The gdhA gene of PAO1 (PA4588), which encodes the anabolic GDH,
has been annotated on the basis of sequence similarity (80%) to
the corresponding gene of E . coli (33) . Like
GDHs of other bacteria (18), the derived sequence
of GdhA of PAO1 does not show significant sequence similarity to the
catabolic GdhB protein, which was characterized earlier in this
laboratory . The results of nucleotide sequence analysis indicated
that the gdhA gene is separated by a putative rho-independent
terminator from an upstream PA4589 gene and the downstream convergent
ccpR gene, which encodes cytochrome peroxidase (7) .
The transcriptional initiation sites of the gltBD and gdhA
genes were determined by primer extension experiments (data not
shown) and identified on the nucleotide sequences as shown in Fig .
2 . In the case of gltBD, sequences resembling the
–10 and –35 consensus sequences of the
70
RNA polymerase of E . coli were identified in the proper
positions relative to the transcriptional initiation site . For
gdhA, the –10 and –35 sequences of the identified transcriptional
initiation site were less homologous to the E . coli
consensus sequences .
Expression of GOGAT and anabolic GDH is repressed by arginine.
P . aeruginosa PAO1 was grown in glutamate minimal medium in
the absence or presence of exogenous arginine, and GltBD and
GdhA activities were measured in cell extracts . The results (Table
2) showed that exogenous arginine represses the specific
activities of each approximately fourfold . Low levels of both
enzymes were observed in extracts of cells grown in minimal medium
supplemented with arginine as the sole source of carbon, energy, and
nitrogen .
| TABLE 2 . Effects of L-arginine and ArgR on
repression of gltBD and gdhA opereons
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The specific activities of GltBD and GdhA were also determined in
strain PAO501, an argR derivative of PAO1 . As shown in Table
2, the specific activities of both enzymes were twofold higher
in extracts of PAO501 cells grown in glutamate minimal medium,
and the repression by exogenous arginine was essentially abolished .
These results indicate that ArgR mediates the observed arginine
repression in the parent strain, PAO1 .
The ArgR-mediated arginine repression was further analyzed with
lacZ fusions carried on a low-copy-number vector . Plasmids pKB39
and pSH1, carrying gltB::lacZ and gdhA::lacZ
translational fusions, respectively, were introduced into PAO1 and
PAO501 . The effect of arginine on expression of ß-galactosidase was
examined in glutamate minimal medium in the absence or presence of
arginine . The results (Table 2) showed that
exogenous arginine represses lacZ expression from pKB39 and
pSH1 in PAO1, but not in the argR derivative, PAO501 . These
results indicated the presence of arginine-repressible promoters in
the upstream regions flanking the gltBD and gdhA genes .
In vitro binding of ArgR to the promoter regions for gltBD and
gdhA . Gel retardation experiments were carried out with homogeneous
ArgR and a 304-bp DNA fragment carrying the control region for
the gltBD operon . The results (Fig . 3) showed that the
ArgR protein binds specifically to the gltBD regulatory region
with an apparent dissociation constant of 20 pM as determined from
a plot of the percentage of bound DNA against the concentration
of ArgR (data not shown) . DNase I footprinting analysis was used to
define the ArgR binding site . Binding of ArgR protects a 42-bp region
against nuclease digestion on both strands (Fig . 4),
40 bases upstream of the transcriptional initiation site of the
gltB promoter (Fig . 2a) .
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FIG . 3 . Gel retardation experiments . The radioactive 32P-labeled
gltBD and gdhA operator DNA fragments were incubated with
the following concentrations of ArgR (from lanes 1 to 5): 0, 15, 30, 60,
and 120 pM for gltBD and 0, 50, 100, 200, and 350 pM for gdhA .
The reactions were performed as described in Materials and Methods . B,
DNA-protein complex; F, free probe.
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FIG . 4 . DNase I footprinting analysis of ArgR with the gltBD
regulatory region . The DNA fragments used were labeled at the 3' end of
the sense strand (lanes 1 to 7) and its complementary strand (lanes 8 to
14) . Lanes: 1 and 14, the corresponding G+A Maxam-Gilbert sequencing
ladders; 2 to 7 and 13 to 8, DNase I footprinting with increasing
concentrations of ArgR (0, 0.6, 1.2, 2.5, 5, and 10 nM) . The protection
regions are indicated by bars and the corresponding nucleotide
sequences.
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Similar experiments with gdhA demonstrated specific binding of
ArgR to a 323-bp DNA fragment carrying the control region (Fig.
3) . The location of this ArgR binding site was determined
from DNase I footprinting analysis (data not shown) . The protected
region starts at 21 bases upstream of the transcriptional initiation
site of the gdhA promoter (Fig . 2b) .
Repression of GltBD and GdhA by glutamate and nitrogen limitation.
Since GltBD and GdhA play major physiological roles in glutamate
biosynthesis and ammonia assimilation, the possible effects of
glutamate and other nitrogen sources on their activities were
investigated . To study the effect of exogenous glutamate, PAO1 and
its argR derivative, PAO501, were grown in glucose-ammonium
minimal medium in the presence or absence of glutamate . The results
(Table 3) showed that exogenous glutamate represses
GltBD and GdhA in wild-type PAO1 by 4.6- and 5.5-fold, respectively .
The repression is retained in the argR derivative, thus precluding
a role for ArgR in glutamate repression . It should be noted
that the repression ratios for GltBD and GdhA in PAO501 are lower
than those observed in PAO1 (2.7- and 2.5-fold, respectively) .
| TABLE 3 . Effect of glutamate on repression of gltBD and gdhA
operons
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To analyze the effect of other nitrogen sources, PAO1 was grown in
succinate minimal medium supplemented with ammonium, nitrate,
proline, or serine as the sole source of nitrogen . The results (Table
4) showed that the level of GdhA specific activity generally
correlates with the effectiveness of these nitrogen sources in
supporting growth of P . aeruginosa, Thus, the highest specific
activity was observed with ammonium (doubling time of 47 min)
and the lowest was observed with nitrate and serine (doubling times
of 75 and 154 min, respectively) .
| TABLE 4 . Effects of nitrogen sources on expression of gltBD and
gdhA operons in P . aeruginosa PAO1
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It is worth noting that the specific activities of GltBD and GdhA in
glucose-ammonium minimal medium are about 60 and 40% higher,
respectively, than those measured in succinate-ammonium minimal
medium (compare enzyme activities in Tables 3 and
4) .
Growth phenotype of gltD::Gmr derivative on
different nitrogen sources. Reitzer (28) has
proposed that in enteric bacteria, reduction of glutamine
biosynthesis resulting from a defect in GOGAT shuts off the Ntr
system and, hence, the catabolic genes for nitrogen utilization . To
investigate if such a hypothesis is applicable to P .
aeruginosa, a gltD::Gmr derivative, PAO502, was
constructed and its ability to utilize various amino acids as sole
nitrogen sources was examined in succinate minimal medium . PAO502 was
capable of utilizing 20 mM L-arginine,
L-proline, L-glutamate,
or L-glutamine as a sole nitrogen source as effectively
as the parent strain, PAO1 . However, unlike the parent strain, PAO502
did not utilize 20 mM L-serine or 20 mM nitrate as
a sole nitrogen source .
Glutamate is the end product of the AST pathway for arginine
utilization (Fig . 1) . In P . aeruginosa, an
arginine-inducible catabolic GDH (GdhB), encoded by the gdhB
gene, catalyzes further breakdown of glutamate into
-ketoglutarate,
which is then utilized through the TCA cycle (18) .
Induction of the expression of gdhB and activation of the
encoded dehydrogenase by arginine serve to direct the flow of
glutamate into the TCA cycle . The repression by exogenous arginine of
the gdhA gene reported here could serve to minimize the
operation of an energy-consuming futile cycle involving the
simultaneous function of gdhA and gdhB when P .
aeruginosa uses arginine as a carbon source (Fig . 1) .
Similarly, arginine repression of the gltBD operon minimizes
loss of energy when glutamate is readily available as the product of
the AST pathway . Thus, the overall physiological significance of the
observed role of arginine in controlling expression of gdhA,
gdhB, and gltBD, which encode three key enzymes of glutamate
metabolism, is conservation of energy while ensuring flow of
the carbon skeletons of arginine into the TCA cycle (for use of
arginine as an energy source) and flow of ammonia into glutamine (for
use of arginine as a nitrogen source) .
Several lines of evidence support the conclusion that ArgR mediates
repression by exogenous arginine of GltBD and GdhA . (i) Repression
by arginine is abolished in an argR derivative of PAO1 in which
argR was inactivated by gene replacement (Table 2) .
(ii) Gel retardation assays showed that homogeneous ArgR binds
specifically to DNA fragments carrying the control regions for the
gltBD and gdhA genes (Fig . 3) . (iii)
DNase I footprinting experiments (Fig . 4) showed
that ArgR protects regions homologous to the ArgR binding site and
centered at positions –60 (for the gltB promoter) and –41 (for
the gdhA promoter) relative to the transcription start site .
The ArgR binding sites for the gltBD and gdhA genes were
compared with the well-characterized ArgR binding sites for the
aot, aru, argF, car, arc, and oprD
promoters (Fig . 5), revealing that the gltB
and gdhA promoters comprise two tandem repeats with a
consensus sequence of 5'-TGTCGCN6GNAAN5-3' . In the
ArgR-repressible operons argF and carAB, the binding
sites completely overlap the target promoters for these operons,
indicating that in these cases ArgR exerts its effect by steric
hindrance (27) . This appears to be the case for
gdhA . However, in the case of gltBD, the ArgR binding site
is located 7 bases upstream from the –35 region of the promoter and
in the reverse orientation relative to the direction of
transcription . It is possible that binding of ArgR in such a spatial
arrangement could inhibit the binding of the alpha subunit of RNA
polymerase to an UP element in the –40 to –60 region of the promoter
(29) .
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FIG . 5 . Sequence alignment of ArgR binding sites . All of the ArgR
binding sites of P . aeruginosa shown have been
characterized by DNase I footprinting experiments . The first and second
halves of the binding sites are depicted by arrows . The consensus
sequence was deduced from the more conserved second half-sites .
Nucleotides identical to those of the consensus are shaded . PA, P.
aeruginosa; PF, P . fluorescens; PP, P .
putida; PS, P . stutzeri.
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Expression of gltBD and gdhA was found to be also subject to
repression by glutamate and nitrogen limitation . Mechanisms for
these controls have not been reported in P . aeruginosa .
In E . coli, the leucine-responsive regulatory protein Lrp is
required for gltBD expression (6) and the Nac
protein represses gltBD under nitrogen limitation but has no
significant effect on gdhA (10) . In
contrast, both gltBD and gdhA of Klebsiella
aerogenes are repressed by Nac (10) . In B .
subtilis, the gltAB operon, which encodes GOGAT, requires
GltC for its activation (1) and is repressed by the
global nitrogen regulator TnrA under nitrogen limitation (2,
35) . No Lrp or Nac functional homologues have been
hitherto identified for P . aeruginosa .
The gltD knockout mutant constructed in this study exhibited
a growth defect in the utilization of nitrate and serine as
nitrogen sources . However, the gltD mutant, like the parent
PAO1, utilized glutamate, glutamine, arginine, or proline as a sole
source of carbon and nitrogen . The growth phenotype of this mutant is
consistent with a previous report by Brown and Tata (4) .
Reitzer has proposed that in enteric bacteria, a defect in GOGAT
results in the accumulation of glutamine under nitrogen limitation,
which, in turn, shuts off the Ntr system and the catabolic genes for
nitrogen utilization (28) . Bender et al . have
reported evidence that supports the alternative hypothesis that the
inability of GOGAT mutants to utilize alternative nitrogen sources is
the result of glutamate starvation rather than an effect of the Ntr
system (10) . In P . aeruginosa, while the latter
explanation could account for the inability of the gltD mutant
to utilize nitrate or serine, the normal growth phenotype on
other amino acids indicates that the Ntr system is less important in
this organism . Thus, induction of catabolic pathways for utilization
of compounds as both carbon and nitrogen sources might involve
mechanisms that are different from the Ntr system .
The findings reported here regarding regulation by arginine of
glutamate biosynthesis in P . aeruginosa likely have physiological
relevance to other pseudomonads that are proficient in utilizing
arginine as a source of carbon, energy, and nitrogen . This hypothesis
is supported by in silica analyses of the published genome sequences
of P . putida, P . fluorescens, and P .
stutzeri at the National Center for Biotechnology Information . In
particular, these three pseudomonads have operon structures that are
homologous to the aot-arg, aru, and gdhB
operons, which function in arginine uptake, utilization, and
regulation in P . aeruginosa PAO1 (18,
23, 26) . Furthermore, sequences
that are homologous to the ArgR-binding sites reported here for
gdhA and gltBD in PAO1 were found to be conserved in the
corresponding regions in P . putida, P . fluorescens,
and P . stutzeri (Fig . 5), except gdhA
of P . stutzeri, which does not have this gene .
This work was supported by grant MCB-9985660 from the National
Science Foundation .
* Corresponding author . Mailing address: Department of Biology,
Georgia State University, 24 Peachtree Center Ave., Atlanta, GA 30303 . Phone:
(404) 651-2531 . Fax: (404) 651-2509 . E-mail: biocdl@panther.gsu.edu.
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