DNA Unwinding Mechanism for the Transcriptional Activation of momP1 Promoter by the Transactivator Protein C of Bacteriophage Mu

Basak, Shashwati and Nagaraja, Valakunja (2001) DNA Unwinding Mechanism for the Transcriptional Activation of momP1 Promoter by the Transactivator Protein C of Bacteriophage Mu. In: The Journal of Biological Chemistry, 276 (50). pp. 46941-46945.

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Abstract

Transcription factor-induced conformational changes in DNA are one of the mechanisms of transcription activation. C protein of bacteriophage Mu appears to transactivate the mom gene of the phage by this mode. DNA binding by C to its site leads to torsional changes that seem to compensate for a weak momP1 promoter having a suboptimal spacing of 19 bp between the poor 35 and 10 elements. The C-mediated unwinding could realign the promoter elements for RNA polymerase recruitment to the reoriented promoter. In this study, the model has been tested by mutational analysis of the spacer region of momP1 and by assessing the strength of the mutant promoters. The response to C-mediated transactivation was dependent on the spacer length of the promoters. Mutants with 17-bp spacing between the two promoter elements showed reduced activity in the presence of the transactivator as compared with their basal level. A synthetic promoter with near consensus promoter elements and optimal 17-bp spacing was also tested to evaluate the model. The results imply a role for C-mediated unwinding in mom transcription activation

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	The Journal of Biological Chemistry
Publisher:	The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Keywords:	DNA Unwinding Mechanism;Transcriptional Activation
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Microbiology & Cell Biology
Date Deposited:	22 Jul 2004
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:14
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/1109

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