摘要
Myxococcus xanthus provides an excellent model organism for studying the mechanism of multicellular morphogenesis. The mRNA for FruA, a transcription factor essential for the development of M. xanthus, contains a very long 5′-UTR consisting of 235 nucleotides. Using lacZ as a reporter gene, two fruA-lacZ translational fusions retaining or lacking the fruA 5′-UTR were constructed and separately integrated at phage Mx8 attachment site (attB) in M. xanthus chromosome. Deletion in 5′-UTR between nucleotides from +4 to +220 abolished fruA-lacZ expression during develop- ment, indicating that the 5′-UTR is essential for the induction of fruA. Prediction of the RNA secondary structure of 5′-UTR shows that this region could form an extremely sta- ble three-helix junction structure, which might be a binding site for a regulatory protein or contain a cis-acting element(s) to control fruA expression. Thus, the 5′-UTR of fruA mRNA positively regulates the expression of its own gene.
Myxococcus xanthus provides an excellent model organism for studying the mechanism of multicellular morphogenesis. The mRNA for FruA, a transcription factor essential for the development of M. xanthus, contains a very long 5′-UTR consisting of 235 nucleotides. Using lacZ as a reporter gene, two fruA-lacZ translational fusions retaining or lacking the fruA 5′-UTR were constructed and separately integrated at phage Mx8 attachment site (attB) in M. xanthus chromosome. Deletion in 5′-UTR between nucleotides from +4 to +220 abolished fruA-lacZ expression during develop- ment, indicating that the 5′-UTR is essential for the induction of fruA. Prediction of the RNA secondary structure of 5′-UTR shows that this region could form an extremely sta- ble three-helix junction structure, which might be a binding site for a regulatory protein or contain a cis-acting element(s) to control fruA expression. Thus, the 5′-UTR of fruA mRNA positively regulates the expression of its own gene.
