Genomic mapping of cAMP receptor protein (CRPMt) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis: relation to transcriptional start sites and the role of CRPMt as a transcription factor

By C. Kahramanoglou, T. Cortes, N. Matange, D. Hunt, S. Visweswariah, D. Young, R. Buxton. 2014

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Chromatin immunoprecipitation identified 191 binding sites of Mycobacterium tuberculosis cAMP receptor protein (CRPMt) at endogenous expression levels using a specific α-CRPMt antibody. Under these native conditions an equal distribution between intragenic and intergenic locations was observed. CRPMt binding overlapped a palindromic consensus sequence. Analysis by RNA sequencing revealed widespread changes in transcriptional profile in a mutant strain lacking CRPMt during exponential growth, and in response to nutrient starvation. Differential expression of genes with a CRPMt-binding site represented only a minor portion of this transcriptional reprogramming with ∼19% of those representing transcriptional regulators potentially controlled by CRPMt. The subset of genes that are differentially expressed in the deletion mutant under both culture conditions conformed to a pattern resembling canonical CRP regulation in Escherichia coli, with binding close to the transcriptional start site associated with repression and upstream binding with activation. CRPMt can function as a classical transcription factor in M. tuberculosis, though this occurs at only a subset of CRPMt-binding sites.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Biology