Identification of the promoter region and the transcriptional regulatory sequence of the evgAS operon of Escherichia coli

Abstract

The evgAS operon of Escherichia coli encodes the EvgA response regulator and the EvgS sensory kinase, which are members of one of the two-component signal transduction systems of Escherichia coli. In this study, we identified the evg promoter and the EvgA-responsive element. Primer extension analysis found two evg transcriptional initiation sites, designated P1 (+1) and P2 (-10), and placed them 114 bp and 124 bp upstream of evgA, respectively. A gel retardation assay demonstrated that EvgA specifically bound to an inverted repeat located between -102 and -128 counting from P1. We also did a beta-galactosidase induction experiment using a promoter-probing vector and found that the EvgA-binding sequence was important to stimulate the evg promoter. These results suggest that the expression of evgAS is positively regulated by its own product, EvgA.