title: The upstream sequence of Mycobacterium leprae 18-kDa gene confers transcription repression activity in orientation-independent manner.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul 137-701, Korea.
authors.forename: Hyun Bae
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Ji Chang
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: You
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D015536:Down-Regulation / Q000235:genetics*; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D009166:Mycobacterium leprae / Q000235:genetics*; D020218:Response Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: C067864:18 kDa protein, Mycobacterium leprae; D001426:Bacterial Proteins