An in silico analysis of T-box regulated genes and T-box evolution in prokaryotes, with emphasis on prediction of substrate specificity of transporters.
BACKGROUND
T-box anti-termination is an elegant and sensitive mechanism by which many bacteria maintain constant levels of amino acid-charged tRNAs. The amino acid specificity of the regulatory element is related to a so-called specifier codon and can in principle be used to guide the functional annotation of the genes controlled via the T-box anti-termination mechanism.


RESULTS
Hidden Markov Models were defined to search the T-box regulatory element and were applied to all completed prokaryotic genomes. The vast majority of the genes found downstream of the retrieved elements encoded functionalities related to transport and synthesis of amino acids and the charging of tRNA. This is completely in line with findings reported in literature and with the proposed biological role of the regulatory element. For several species, the functional annotation of a large number of genes encoding proteins involved in amino acid transport could be improved significantly on basis of the amino acid specificity of the identified T-boxes. In addition, these annotations could be extrapolated to a larger number of orthologous systems in other species. Analysis of T-box distribution confirmed that the element is restricted predominantly to species of the phylum Firmicutes. Furthermore, it appeared that the distribution was highly species specific and that in the case of amino acid transport some boxes seemed to "pop-up" only recently.


CONCLUSIONS
We have demonstrated that the identification of the molecular specificity of a regulatory element can be of great help in solving notoriously difficult annotation issues, e.g. by defining the substrate specificity of genes encoding amino acid transporters on basis of the amino acid specificity of the regulatory T-box. Furthermore, our analysis of the species-dependency of the occurrence of specific T-boxes indicated that these regulatory elements propagate in a semi-independent way from the genes that they control.
Wels
Michiel
M
TI Food and Nutrition, Wageningen, The Netherlands. michiel.wels@nizo.nl
Groot Kormelink
Tom
T
Kleerebezem
Michiel
M
Siezen
Roland J
RJ
Francke
Christof
C
D026905:Amino Acid Transport Systems / Q000235:genetics; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D005810:Multigene Family; D011130:RNA Ligase (ATP) / Q000235:genetics; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D013379:Substrate Specificity; D020825:T-Box Domain Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D013728:Terminator Regions, Genetic
D026905:Amino Acid Transport Systems; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003062:Codon; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D020825:T-Box Domain Proteins; D011130:RNA Ligase (ATP)