Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 2, 2026

Following Cell-fate in E. coli After Infection by Phage Lambda
Published on: October 14, 2011
Promoter interference in a bacteriophage lambda control region: effects of a range of interpromoter distances
M G Strainic1, J J Sullivan, J Collado-Vides
1Department of Biochemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-4935, USA.
Abstract:
The p(R) and p(RM) promoters of bacteriophage lambda direct transcription in divergent directions from start sites separated by 83 phosphodiester bonds. We had previously shown that the presence of an RNA polymerase at p(R) interfered with open complex formation at p(RM) and that this effect was alleviated by the deletion of 10 bp between the two promoters. Here we present a detailed characterization of the dependence of the interference on the interpromoter distance. It was found that the reduced interference between the two promoters is unique to the 10-bp deletion. The relief of interference was demonstrated to be due to the facilitation of a step subsequent to RNA polymerase binding to the p(RM) promoter. A model to explain these observations is proposed. A search of known Escherichia coli promoters identified three pairs of divergent promoters with similar separations to those investigated here.
Related Concept Videos
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
RNA Polymerase II Accessory Proteins
Prokaryotic Transcriptional Activators and Repressors
Transcription of prokaryotic...
The Eukaryotic Promoter Region
DNA Bacteriophages
Regulation of Bacterial Virulence

