Structural Analysis of Bacillus subtilis Sigma Factors

Abstract

Bacteria use an array of sigma factors to regulate gene expression during different stages of their life cycles. Full-length, atomic-level structures of sigma factors have been challenging to obtain experimentally as a result of their many regions of intrinsic disorder. AlphaFold has now supplied plausible full-length models for most sigma factors. Here we discuss the current understanding of the structures and functions of sigma factors in the model organism, Bacillus subtilis, and present an X-ray crystal structure of a region of B. subtilis SigE, a sigma factor that plays a critical role in the developmental process of spore formation.

Menaquinone Production by Engineering a DegU Quorum Sensing Circuit in Bacillus subtilis

“…There are a variety of sigma factors in Bacillus subtilis (Collins et al 2023), which play different roles. These sigma factors can be divided into major sigma factors and minor sigma factors according to their importance and function: Among them, the major sigma factors are also called housekeeping sigma factors, which are mainly responsible for the transcription of some genes necessary for life activities.…”

“…Meanwhile, DegU belongs to the NarL response regulator family, which has a helix-turn-helix structure at the C-terminus to recognize speci c DNA sequences (Tsukahara et al 2008Collins et al 2023) . Degu-P can bind to the promoter region of target genes to form a DegU-DNA dimer structure (Tsukahara et al 2008Gupta et al 2014Hamoen et al 2000, and then regulate the activity of related genes.…”