Promoters and Plasmid Vectors of Corynebacterium glutamicum

The promoters and plasmids of Corynebacterium glutamicum can be viewed as subjects for genetic examination, tools for studies of gene expression, and a means for the improvement of industrial strains. Various classes of C. glutamicum promoters, their specific functions in gene expression control, and methods for their analysis are described in this review. C. glutamicum promoters recognized by RNA polymerase with a specific sigma factor (SigA, SigB, SigH, or SigM) were localized and their consensus sequences determined. Experimental localization of transcriptional start points revealed complex gene expression M. Pátek (*) • J. Nešvera Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v. v. i., Vı́deňská 1083, 14220 Prague 4, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] H. Yukawa and M. Inui (eds.), Corynebacterium glutamicum, Microbiology Monographs 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-29857-8_2, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 51 regulation features, such as overlapping multiple promoters. An overview of native plasmids used for the construction ofC. glutamicum vectors and examples of vectors applied in genetic analysis are provided. In addition to basic cloning vectors, specialpurpose vectors are described. This includes promoter-probe vectors for the analysis of promoter activity profiles and various regulatory mechanism and expression vectors, which carry promoters as efficient signals for gene expression.