Regions of the CFA/I promoter involved in the activation by the transcriptional activator CfaD and repression by the histone-like protein H-NS.

Expression of CFA/I fimbriae of Escherichia coli requires the transcriptional activator CfaD. The mechanism by which CfaD activates the CFA/I promoter is to overcome the repression by H-NS, one of the histone-like proteins in E coli. This study addresses the question of which sequences in the promoter region of CFA/I interact with CfaD and H-NS. In order to determine this, deletion mutants of the CFA/I promoter were constructed and cloned upstream of the promoterless lacZ gene. The effect of CfaD and H-NS on the expression of these constructs was determined.