The SOS genes, polB, dinB and umuDC, encode specialized DNA polymerases II, IV and V respectively, which can bypass DNA

lesions yet with KU57788 reduced fidelity click here introducing mutations to newly synthesized DNA [29]. The operon encoding PolV is regulated by an SOS box that exhibits one of the highest predicted LexA binding affinities, with a HI of 2.77 [30]. It was shown that only upon full induction of the SOS response UmuD is synthesized and persists as a full length dimer [31]. Accordingly, fluorescence emission from the umuDC-gfp fusion was observed in a very small fraction of the examined cells (0.09%) and no detectable basal level of expression was observed among the large majority of the population. Our results show that in the absence of exogenous DNA damaging agents very low levels of umuDC promoter activity is detected. As translesion synthesis must be employed only when necessary, synthesis of the specialized polymerases is under physiological conditions controlled by complex regulation at the level of transcription and posttranslation. SOS regulated genes are expressed in a recA defective strain Besides

regulating DNA repair, induction of the SOS response has been recently shown to have a much broader role including, regulation of virulence factor synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus [31], type III secretion Angiogenesis inhibitor in enteropathogenic E. coli [32], subversion of innate defenses during urinary tract infection [33] and persistence to the fluoroquinolone antibiotic ciprofloxacin [34]. To examine to what extent expression of the investigated pore forming and DNase colicin activity genes as well as the recA, lexA and umuDC genes is dependent upon an SOS response under physiological conditions, expression was investigated in an isogenic recA defective strain RW464 (Figure 2). Analysis Liothyronine Sodium at the single cell level revealed reduction in the level of fluorescence and the number of intensely expressing cells harboring the recA, lexA, umuDC, caa as well as ce7a – gfp gene fusions and lower fluorescence of cells harboring

ce1a and cna-gfp fusions. A greater reduction in the number of intensely expressing cells for colicin A (approximately ten fold) and colicin E7 (approximately three fold) was observed, while the percentage of cells expressing colicin E1 and N activity genes remained essentially unaltered (Figure 2, Table 4). The majority of the E. coli LexA regulon promoters are simple, being regulated only by a single transcriptional factor [35] however, some colicin encoding genes have additional regulation. Indeed, the CRP-cAMP complex was shown to stimulate expression of the colicin E1 activity gene ce1a by binding upstream from the ce1a SOS operator [36, 37]. Interestingly, analysis of the colicin N promoter revealed a similar CRP binding site at the same location (Ghazaryan L., personal communication).