Escherichia coli promoters. I. Consensus as it relates to spacing class, specificity, repeat substructure, and three-dimensional organization.

Fifty-two of the best characterized Escherichia coli promoters in the Hawley and McClure [1983) Nucleic Acids Res. 8, 2237-2255) listing were used to determine the distribution of information content in promoters and to describe the basic features underlying the existence of several different promoter spacing classes, which are defined by the number of bases separating the -35 and -10 regions. The contact regions at -35 and -10 do not, on the average, contain sufficient information to specify a promoter. The search for additional specifying bases led to two conclusions: 1) the consensus nucleotide sequence in the noncontact regions of a promoter appears to be distinct for each of the major promoter spacing classes; 2) promoters appear to contain a 15-20 base subset of the 40-50 additional optimal noncontact bases. This improved view of the extended consensus sequence allows the detection of a 10-base degenerate palindrome which may be the basic unit of promoter structure. Contiguous direct repeats of this sequence produce a sequence closely related to the consensus for the 18-base pair spacing class. This underlying structure is also evidenced in the 17- and 16-base pair spacing classes; however, the start points of the fourth and subsequent repetitions of the sequence element are moved one and two bases upstream, respectively, relative to their location in the 18-base pair spacing class. These consensus sequences, when viewed in a helical format, all present the opportunity for two alternative sets of a dyad repeat. The -35 region is common to both sets and is paired with an extended -10 region in one set and with a pseudo-10 region in the other. Possible implications of these arrangements are discussed.