- Eon-Min Ko: Department of Integrated Biological Science, Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea.
- Jeong-Il Oh: Department of Integrated Biological Science, Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea.
The respiratory electron transport chain (ETC) of is terminated with two terminal oxidases, the cytochrome oxidase and the cytochrome quinol oxidase. The quinol oxidase with a higher binding affinity for O than the oxidase is known to play an important role in aerobic respiration under oxygen-limiting conditions. Using relevant () and () mutant strains of , we demonstrated that Crp1 plays a predominant role in induction of the operon under ETC-inhibitory conditions. Two Crp-binding sequences were identified upstream of the gene, both of which are necessary for induction of expression under ETC-inhibitory conditions. The intracellular level of cAMP in was found to be increased under ETC-inhibitory conditions. The gene was found to be negatively regulated by Crp1 and Crp2, which appears to lead to significantly low cellular abundance of Crp2 relative to Crp1 in . Our RNA sequencing analyses suggest that in addition to the SigF partner switching system, Crp1 is involved in induction of gene expression in exposed to ETC-inhibitory conditions.