Genetic analysis of the cIII gene of bacteriophage HK022.

The cIII gene product of lambdoid bacteriophages promotes lysogeny by stabilizing the phage-encoded CII protein, a transcriptional activator of the repressor and integrase genes. Previous works showed that the synthesis of the bacteriophage lambda CIII protein has specific translational requirements imposed by the structure of the mRNA. To gain insight into the mRNA structure and its role in regulating cIII translation, we undertook a mutational analysis of the cIII gene of the related bacteriophage HK022. Our data support the hypothesis that in HK022, as in lambda, translation initiation requires a specific mRNA structure. In addition, we found that translation of HK022 cIII, like that of lambda, is strongly reduced in a host deficient in the endonuclease RNase III.