Effects of neighboring DNA homopolymers on the biochemical and physical properties of the Escherichia coli lactose promoter. I. Cloning and characterization studies.

To assess the role of neighboring DNA sequences in gene regulation, poly(dA).poly(dT) and poly(dG).poly(dC) were cloned adjacent to promoters of the lactose control region. Recombinant plasmids were constructed which were suitable for large scale purification of restriction fragments containing these promoters, 95-base pair (bp) AluI fragments containing the lack operator and promoter for the lac wild type and for the catabolite gene activating the protein-independent mutant, lac UV5, were cloned into pBR322. Homopolymers of varying lengths were inserted into the -60 region of these promoters using recombinant DNA techniques. Six of the recombinant plasmids were chosen for detailed analysis: wild type (wt); wt-AT, containing 70 bp of poly(dA).poly(dT); wt-GC, containing 23 bp of poly(dG).poly(dC); UV5; UV5-AT, containing 70 bp of poly(dA).poly(dT) and finally UV5-GC, containing 43 bp of poly(dG).poly(dC). These plasmids were characterized by restriction mapping and DNA sequencing. The effects of the DNA homopolymers on the interaction of the Escherichia coli RNA polymerase with the promoters were studied using nitrocellulose filter binding. The results show that poly(dA).poly(dT) increases the level of RNA polymerase binding, whereas poly(dG).poly(dC) has no detectable effect.