Transcription attenuation: a highly conserved regulatory strategy used by bacteria.
We employed computational analyses to assess the conservation of sequence elements that are believed to be essential for the various transcription-attenuation (termination) mechanisms that are used to regulate expression of families of orthologous genes in bacteria. We searched the upstream sequence of every predicted transcription unit for a transcription attenuator. These were then clustered by the orthology relationships of the nearby structural genes. Many gene families regulated by transcription attenuation were found to be adjacent to a regulatory region that had a binding site for a specific protein, tRNA or small metabolite. Using our methodology, we predict that at least 80 different clusters of orthologous groups (COGs) are significantly regulated by transcription attenuation.
Merino
Enrique
E
Department of Molecular Microbiology, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62271, México.
Yanofsky
Charles
C
D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D005796:Genes; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000378:metabolism*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV