‘Locked‐on’ and ‘locked‐off’ signal transduction mutations in the periplasmic domain of the Escherichia coli NarQ and NarX sensors affect nitrate‐ and nitrite‐dependent regulation by NarL and NarP
The Escherichia coli NarX, NarQ, NarL and NarP proteins comprise a two-component regulatory system that controls the expression of many anaerobic electron-transport and fermentation-related genes in response to nitrate and nitrite. Either of the two sensor-transmitter proteins, NarX and NarQ, can activate the response-regulator proteins, NarL and NarP, which in turn are able to bind at their respective DNA regulatory sites to modulate gene expression. NarX contains a conserved 17 amino acid sequence, designated the 'P-box' element, that is essential for nitrate sensing. In this study we characterize narQ mutants that also confer altered nitrate control of NarL-dependent nitrate reductase (narGHJI) and fumarate reductase (frdABCD) gene expression. While some narQ mutations cause the constitutive activation or repression of reporter-gene expression even when the cells are grown in the absence of the nitrate signal (i.e. a 'locked-on' phenotype), other mutations abolish nitrate-dependent control (i.e. a 'locked-off' phenotype). Interestingly the narQ (A42-->T) and narQ (R50-->Q) mutations along with the analogous narX18 (A46-->T) and narX902 (R54-->E) mutations also confer a 'locked-on' or a 'locked-off' phenotype in response to nitrite, the second environmental signal detected by NarQ and NarX. Furthermore, these narQ and narX mutations also affect NarP-dependent gene regulation of nitrite reductase (nrfABCDEFG) and aeg-46.5 gene expression in response to nitrite. We therefore propose that the NarQ sensor-transmitter protein also detects nitrate and nitrite in the periplasmic space via its periplasmic domain. A signal transduction model, which we previously proposed for NarX, is now extended to NarQ, in which a nitrate- or nitrite-detection event in the periplasmic region of the cell is followed by a signal transduction event through the inner membrane to the cytoplasmic domain of NarQ and NarX proteins to modulate their protein kinase/phosphatase activities.