Abstract
Treatment of Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli cells with low doses of hydrogen peroxide results in the induction of thirty proteins and resistance to killing by higher doses of hydrogen peroxide. The expression of nine of the hydrogen peroxide-inducible proteins, including catalase, glutathione reductase and a novel alkyl hydroperoxide reductase is controlled by the positive regulator oxyR. OxyR is homologous to the LysR-NodD family of bacterial regulatory proteins and binds to the promoters of oxyR-regulated genes. The oxidized but not reduced form of the OxyR protein activates transcription of oxyR-regulated genes in vitro suggesting that oxidation of the OxyR protein brings about a conformational change by which OxyR both senses and transduces an oxidative stress signal to RNA polymerase.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bölker, M. and Kahmann, R. (1989) The Escherichia coli regulatory protein OxyR discriminates between methylated and unmethylated states of the phage Mu mom promoter. EMBO J. 8, 2403–2410.
Christman, M. F., Morgan, R. W., Jacobson, F. S. and Ames, B.N. (1985) Positive control of a regulon for defenses against oxidative stress and some heat-shock proteins in Salmonella typhimurium. Cell 41, 753–762.
Christman, M. F., Storz, G. and Ames, B N (1989) OxyR, a positive regulator of hydrogen peroxide-inducible genes in Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium, is homologous to a family of bacterial regulatory proteins. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86, 3484–3488.
Demple, B. and Halbrook, J. (1983) Inducible repair of oxidative DNA damage in Escherichia coli. Nature 304, 466–468.
Farr, S. B., Touati, D. and Kogoma, T. (1988) Effects of oxygen stress on membrane functions in Escherichia coli: Role of HPI catalase. J. Bacteriol. 170, 1837–1842.
Fields, P. I., Swanson, R. V., Haidaris, C. G. and Heffron, F. (1986) Mutants of Salmonella typhimurium that cannot survive within the macrophage are avirulent. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83, 5189–5193.
Goerlich, O., Quillardet, P. and Hofnung, M. (1989) Induction of the SOS response by hydrogen peroxide in various Escherichia coli mutants with altered protection against oxidative DNA damage. J. Bacteriol. 171, 6141–6147.
Greenberg, J. T. and Demple, B. (1988) Over production of peroxide-scavenging enzymes in Escherichia coli suppresses spontaneous mutagenesis and sensitivity to redoxcycling agents in oxyR- mutants. EMBO J. 7, 2611–2617.
Jacobson, F. S., Morgan, R. W., Christman, M. F. and Ames, B. N. (1989) An alkyl hydroperoxide reductase from Salmonella typhimurium involved in the defense of DNA against oxidative damage: Purification and properties. J. Biol. Chem. 264, 1488–1496.
Morgan, R. W., Christman, M. F., Jacobson, F. S., Storz, G. and Ames, B. N. (1986) Hydrogen peroxide-inducible proteins in Salmonella typhimurium overlap with heat shock and other stress proteins. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83, 8059–8063.
Storz, G., Christman, M. F., Sies, H. and Ames, B N. (1987) Spontaneous mutagenesis and oxidative damage to DNA in Salmonella typhimurium. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 84, 8917–8921.
Storz, G., Jacobson, F. S., Tartaglia, L. A., Morgan, R. W., Silveira, L. A. and Ames, B. N. (1989) An alkyl hydroperoxide reductase induced by oxidative stress in Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli: Genetic characterization and cloning of ahp. J. Bacteriol. 171, 2049–2055.
Storz, G., Tartaglia, L. A. and Ames, B. N. (1990) Transcriptional regulator of oxidative stress-inducible genes: Direct activation by oxidation. Science 248, 189–194.
Tartaglia, L. A., Storz, G. and Ames, B. N. (1989) Identification and molecular analysis of oxyR-regulated promoters important for the bacterial adaptation to oxidative stress. J. Mol. Biol. 210, 709–719.
Tartaglia, L. A., Storz, G., Brodsky, M. H., Lai, A. and Ames, B N. (1990) Alkyl hydroperoxide reductase from Salmonella typhimurium: Sequence and homology to thioredoxin reductase and other flavoprotein disulfide oxidoreductases. J. Biol. Chem 265, 10535–10540.
Tao, K., Makino, K., Yonei, S., Nakata, A., Shinagawa, H. (1989) Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequencing of oxyR, the positive regulatory gene of a regulon for an adaptive response to oxidative stress in Escherichia coli: Homologies between OxyR protein and a family of bacterial activator proteins. Mol. Gen. Genet. 218, 371–376.
VanBogelen, R. A., Kelley, P. M. and Neidhardt, F. C. (1987) Differential induction of heat shock, SOS, and oxidation stress regulons and accumulation of nucleotides in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 169, 26–32.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Storz, G., Tartaglia, L.A. & Ames, B.N. The OxyR regulon. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 58, 157–161 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00548927
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00548927