Identification of a central regulator of stationary-phase gene expression in Escherichia coli

During carbon-starvation-induced entry into stationary phase, Escherichia coli cells exhibit a variety of physiological and morphological changes that ensure survival during periods of prolonged starvation. Induction of 30-50 proteins of mostly unknown function has been shown under these conditions. In an attempt to identify C-starvation-regulated genes we isolated and characterized chromosomal C-starvation-induced csi::lacZ fusions using the lambda placMu system. One operon fusion (csi2::lacZ) has been studied in detail. csi2::lacZ was induced during transition from exponential to stationary phase and was negatively regulated by cAMP. It was mapped at 59 min on the E. coli chromosome and conferred a pleiotropic phenotype. As demonstrated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, cells carrying csi2::lacZ did not synthesize at least 16 proteins present in an isogenic csi2+ strain. Cells containing csi2::lacZ or csi2::Tn10 did not produce glycogen, did not develop thermotolerance and H2O2 resistance, and did not induce a stationary-phase-specific acidic phosphatase (AppA) as well as another csi fusion (csi5::lacZ). Moreover, they died off much more rapidly than wild-type cells during prolonged starvation. We conclude that csi2::lacZ defines a regulatory gene of central importanc e for stationary phase E. coli cells. These results and the cloning of the wild-type gene corresponding to csi2 demonstrated that the csi2 locus is allelic with the previously identified regulatory genes katF and appR. The katF sequence indicated that its gene product is a novel sigma factor supposed to regulate expression of catalase HPII and exonuclease III (Mulvey and Loewen, 1989). We suggest that this novel sigma subunit of RNA polymerase defined by csi2/katF/appR is a central early regulator of a large starvation/stationary phase regulon in E. coli and propose 'rpoS' ('sigma S') as appropriate designations.