Cloning, disruption, and transcriptional analysis of three RNA polymerase sigma factor genes of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).

The rpoD gene of Myxococcus xanthus was used as a probe to isolate three Streptomyces coelicolor genes, hrdB, hrdC, and hrdD, which appear to encode RNA polymerase sigma factors extremely similar to the sigma 70 polypeptide of Escherichia coli. Gene disruption experiments suggested that hrdB is essential in S. coelicolor A3(2) but showed that hrdC and hrdD mutants are viable and are apparently unaffected in differentiation, gross morphology, and antibiotic production. S1 nuclease mapping showed that hrdB and hrdD, but not hrdC, were transcribed in liquid culture. The most upstream of two hrdD promoters is internal to an open reading frame (ORF X) on the opposite strand. The predicted product of this gene is homologous to the phosphinothricin acetyltransferases of Streptomyces hygroscopicus and Streptomyces viridochromogenes. The possible significance of the overlapping and divergent transcription of hrdD and ORF X is discussed. A general method for in vivo gene replacement was developed that allowed a positive selection for the desired mutants even in the absence of a mutant phenotype; it was used to isolate a stable hrdC mutant.