Transcription of the ctc gene in Bacillus subtilis is activated only after exponentially growing cells enter stationary phase. The promoter of the ctc gene is utilized in vitro by two minor forms of RNA polymerase, E sigma 37 and E sigma 32, but not by the most abundant form of RNA polymerase, E sigma 55. We have used the ctc promoter to direct transcription of the xylE gene on plasmid pLC4 and...

Glucose transporters (GLUTs) provide a pathway for glucose transport across membranes. Human GLUTs are implicated in devastating diseases such as heart disease, hyper- and hypo-glycemia, type 2 diabetes and cancer. The human GLUT1 has been recently crystalized in the inward-facing open conformation. However, there is no other structural information for other conformations. The X-ray structures ...

Bacterial hemoglobin (VtHb) is produced by the gram-negative bacterium, Vitreoscilla, in large quantity in response to hypoxic environmental conditions. The vgb gene coding for VtHb has been cloned in E. coli where it is expressed strongly by its natural promoter. The expression of the vgb gene in Vitreoscilla is transcriptionally regulated by oxygen. When E. coli cells were shifted from 20% to...

Localized sets of random point mutations generated by PCR amplification can be transferred efficiently to the chromosome of Acinetobacter ADP1 (also known as strain BD413) by natural transformation. The technique does not require cloning of PCR fragments in plasmids: PCR-amplified DNA fragments are internalized by cells and directly incorporated into their genomes by homologous recombination. P...

The urate transporter, GLUT9, is responsible for the basolateral transport of urate in the proximal tubule of human kidneys and in the placenta, playing a central role in uric acid homeostasis. GLUT9 shares the least homology with other members of the glucose transporter family, especially with the glucose transporting members GLUT1-4 and is the only member of the GLUT family to transport urate...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanism by which phytoremediation systems promote hydrocarbon degradation in soil. The composition and degradation capacity of the bulk soil microbial community during the phytoremediation of soil contaminated with aged hydrocarbons was assessed. In the bulk soil, the level of catabolic genes involved in hydrocarbon degradation (ndoB, alkB, and...

Staphylococcus aureus expression of capsular polysaccharide type 5 (CP5) has been shown to be downregulated by CO(2). Here we show that CO(2) reduces CP5 expression at the transcriptional level and that CO(2) regulates CP8 expression depending on the genetic background of the strains. Growth in the presence of air supplemented with 5% CO(2) caused a significant decrease in CP8 expression in fou...

Bacterial sugar symporters in the Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS) use the H+ (and in a few cases Na+) electrochemical gradients to achieve active transport of sugar into the cell. Because a number of structures of MFS sugar symporters have been solved recently, molecular insight into the transport mechanism is possible from detailed functional analysis. We present here a comparative electro...