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Infection and Immunity, December 1998, p. 5698-5702, Vol. 66, No. 12
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

TetR Is a Positive Regulator of the Tetanus Toxin Gene in Clostridium tetani and Is Homologous to BotR

Jean-Christophe Marvaud,1 Ulrich Eisel,2 Thomas Binz,3 Heiner Niemann,3 and Michel R. Popoff1,*

Unité des Toxines Microbiennes, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France,1 and Institut für Zellbiologie und Immunologie, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart,2 and Institut für Biochemie, Medizinische Hochschule, 30623 Hannover,3 Germany

Received 6 July 1998/Returned for modification 20 August 1998/Accepted 8 September 1998

The TetR gene immediately upstream from the tetanus toxin (TeTx) gene was characterized. It encodes a 21,562-Da protein which is related (50 to 65% identity) to the equivalent genes (botR) in Clostridium botulinum. TetR has the feature of a DNA binding protein with a basic pI (9.53). It contains a helix-turn-helix motif and shows 29% identity with other putative regulatory genes in Clostridium, i.e., uviA from C. perfringens and txeR from C. difficile. We report for the first time the transformation of C. tetani by electroporation, which permitted us to investigate the function of tetR. Overexpression of tetR in C. tetani induced an increase in TeTx production and in the level of the corresponding mRNA. This indicates that TetR is a transcriptional activator of the TeTx gene. Overexpression of botR/A (60% identity with TetR at the amino acid level) in C. tetani induced an increase in TeTx production comparable to that for overexpression of tetR. However, botR/C (50% identity with TetR at the amino acid level) was less efficient. This supports that TetR positively regulates the TeTx gene in C. tetani and that a conserved mechanism of regulation of the neurotoxin genes is involved in C. tetani and C. botulinum.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Unité des Toxines Microbiennes, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr. Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. Phone: 33 1 45 68 83 07. Fax: 33 1 45 68 84 56. E-mail: mpopoff{at}pasteur.fr.

Infection and Immunity, December 1998, p. 5698-5702, Vol. 66, No. 12
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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