Tarasov Valery Y, Besir Hüseyin, Schwaiger Rita, Klee Kathrin, Furtwängler Katarina, Pfeiffer Friedhelm, Oesterhelt Dieter
Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Department of Membrane Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany.
Mol Microbiol. 2008 Feb;67(4):772-80. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2007.06081.x. Epub 2008 Jan 2.
Bacteriorhodopsin, the photosynthetic protein of Halobacterium salinarum, is optimally expressed under anaerobic growth conditions. We identified Brz (OE3104F, bacteriorhodopsin-regulating zinc finger protein), a new regulator of the bop gene. It is a small protein with a zinc finger motif, encoded directly upstream of the bop gene in the same orientation. Deletion of the brz gene caused a large decrease of bop mRNA levels as shown by Northern blot and microarray analysis. A similar effect was obtained by site-directed mutagenesis of Cys and His residues in the zinc finger motif, indicating the importance of this motif for the function of the protein. In silico analysis of the genomes from H. salinarum and other archaea revealed a large family of similar small zinc finger motif proteins, some of which may also be involved in transcription regulation of their adjacent genes.
细菌视紫红质是盐生盐杆菌的光合蛋白，在厌氧生长条件下能实现最佳表达。我们鉴定出了Brz（OE3104F，细菌视紫红质调节锌指蛋白），它是bop基因的一种新型调节因子。它是一种带有锌指基序的小蛋白，以相同方向直接编码在bop基因的上游。如Northern印迹和微阵列分析所示，brz基因的缺失导致bop mRNA水平大幅下降。通过对锌指基序中的半胱氨酸和组氨酸残基进行定点诱变也获得了类似的效果，这表明该基序对该蛋白的功能很重要。对盐生盐杆菌和其他古菌的基因组进行的电子分析揭示了一个由类似的小锌指基序蛋白组成的大家族，其中一些蛋白可能也参与其相邻基因的转录调控。
