The molecular regulation of the reductive pentose phosphate pathway in Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria

Abstract

In phototrophic and chemoautotrophic proteobacteria, genes encoding enzymes of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham pathway of CO₂ fixation are often found in clusters that are transcribed from a single promoter under control of the LysR-type transcriptional activator, CbbR. Mutations affecting CbbR prevent induction of cbb genes. Gel-retardation assays have demonstrated CbbR binding to putative regulatory regions of cbb operons, and in two cases, footprinting experiments have delimited the nucleotide sequence protected by CbbR. Fusion of cbb control sequences to reporter genes has allowed the regions required for promoter activity to be defined, and recent experiments indicate that the cbb regulon in Rhodobacter is controlled by a global two-component signal transduction system that also regulates other metabolic processes in this organism. Different ways of regulating CBB cycle enzymes that also have roles in heterotrophic metabolism have recently been discovered. In cyanobacteria, the genes of the CBB pathway are organized and regulated differently, and these oxygen-evolving phototrophic bacteria have evolved different strategies to control the assimilation of CO₂.