Transcriptional control by A-factor of two trypsin genes in Streptomyces griseus

AdpA is the key transcriptional activator for a number of genes of various functions in the A-factor regulatory cascade in Streptomyces griseus, forming an AdpA regulon. Trypsin-like activity was detected at a late stage of growth in the wild-type strain but not in an A-factor-deficient mutant. Consistent with these observations, two trypsin genes, sprT and sprU, in S. griseus were found to be members of the AdpA regulon; AdpA activated the transcription of both genes by binding to the operators located at about -50 nucleotide positions with respect to the transcriptional start point. The transcription of sprT and sprU, induced by AdpA, was most active at the onset of sporulation. Most trypsin activity exerted by S. griseus was attributed to SprT, because trypsin activity in an sprT-disrupted mutant was greatly reduced but that in an sprU-disrupted mutant was only slightly reduced. This was consistent with the observation that the amount of the sprT mRNA was much greater than that of the sprU transcript. Disruption of both sprT and sprU (mutant DeltasprTU) reduced trypsin activity to almost zero, indicating that no trypsin genes other than these two were present in S. griseus. Even the double mutant DeltasprTU grew normally and developed aerial hyphae and spores over the same time course as the wild-type strain.