The Escherichia coli starvation gene cstC is involved in amino acid catabolism.
Escherichia coli strains mutant in the starvation gene cstC grow normally in a mineral salts medium but are impaired in utilizing amino acids as nitrogen sources. They are also compromised in starvation survival, where amino acid catabolism is important. The cstC gene encodes a 406-amino-acid protein that closely resembles the E. coli ArgD protein, which is involved in arginine biosynthesis. We postulate that CstC is a counterpart of ArgD in an amino acid catabolic pathway. The cstC upstream region contains several regulatory consensus sequences. Both sigmaS and sigma54 promoters are probably involved in cstC transcription and appear to compete with each other, presumably to match cstC expression to the cellular amino acid catabolic needs.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
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Fraley
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Kim
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McCann
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D000637:Transaminases
D000596:Amino Acids; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D000637:Transaminases; C113961:astC protein, E coli