What is it about?
Bacteria have strict food preferences in terms of the order in which they uptake and utilise substrates: the underlying mechanism being carbon catabolite repression (CCR). CCR has been well studied in E. coli where it is mediated by the catabolite-activating protein (CAP) charged with cAMP. However, this paradigm does not hold for many non-enteric bacteria, including those of the closely related genus Pseudomonas.
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Why is it important?
In this work, we show that the succinate-mediated repression of xylose utilisation genes in Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 occurs at the post-transcriptional level under the control of a complex multi-component regulatory system: CbrAB - CrcY/CrcZ - Crc/Hfq. The two ncRNAs, CrcY and CrcZ, are genetically redundant but our results of mathematical modelling predict that they must have separate functions for their evolutionary co-existance. We also initiated fitness assays that can help understand why Pseudomonas strains have evolved such a complex CCR regulatory system.
Perspectives
With the publication of this complex CCR mechanism, i am happily taking up the challenge to determine the molecular basis of maintaining carbon and nitrogen metabolic balance in Pseudomonas.
Dr Xue-Xian Zhang
Massey University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unravelling the complexity and redundancy of carbon catabolic repression in Pseudomonas fluorescens
SBW25, Molecular Microbiology, June 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/mmi.13720.
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