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Regulation of aerobic photosystem synthesis in the purple bacterium Rhodospirillum centenum by CrtJ and AerR

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Abstract

Genes coding for putative CrtJ and AerR homologs were identified and characterized in the purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodospirillum centenum (also known as Rhodocista centenaria), an organism that synthesizes photopigments even under highly aerated conditions. Mutational analysis indicated that in Rsp. centenum, genecrtJ codes for a repressor for photosynthesisgene expression as in Rhodobactercapsulatus, which exhibits a high level of oxygen repression of photosystem synthesis. In contrast to Rba. capsulatus, AerR in Rsp. centenum appears to be an aerobic activator; an aerR mutation resulted in significantly reduced levels of photopigment synthesis. Both aerR and crtJ mutants retained essentially normal levels of photosystem synthesis under anaerobic conditions, indicating that their activities are specific for aerobic photosystem synthesis. The readthrough transcript from crtE promoter, which is regulated by AerR and CrtJ, seems to be significant in maintaining the expression levels of the light harvesting I (puf) genes in Rsp. centenum. We suggest that AerR and CrtJ regulate aerobic photosystem synthesis primarily through controlling activity of the transcriptional readthrough.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan

    Shinji Masuda

  2. Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405, USA

    James Berleman, Ben M. Hasselbring & Carl E. Bauer

Authors
  1. Shinji Masuda
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  2. James Berleman
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  3. Ben M. Hasselbring
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  4. Carl E. Bauer
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Correspondence to Shinji Masuda.

Additional information

This paper was published as part of the themed issue of contributions from the 7th International Conference on Tetrapyrrole Photoreceptors in Photosynthetic Organisms held in Kyoto, December 2007.

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Masuda, S., Berleman, J., Hasselbring, B.M. et al. Regulation of aerobic photosystem synthesis in the purple bacterium Rhodospirillum centenum by CrtJ and AerR. Photochem Photobiol Sci 7, 1267–1272 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1039/b802365b

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