[Progress in oxyR regulon- the bacterial antioxidant defense system--a review]

The bacterial antioxidant defense system, including oxyR; soxRS; perR and ohrR, is employed to cope with oxidative stress induced by respiration or environmental assaults. oxyR, encompasses the gene encoding OxyR and some other genes and operons regulated by it, has captured the highest attention among these regulons. To date, members of oxyR regulon have been confirmed to participate in many physiological processes including antioxidant defense, repression of spontaneous mutagenesis, virulence, iron metabolism and out membrane protein phase-variation. Though controversy still exists among researchers, molecular mechanism of transcription regulation by OxyR has been intensively investigated in Escherichia coli. The diverse physiological processes participated by oxyR regulon have facilitated its applied research, such as screening for mutagens and dealing with antimicrobial resistance problems frequently occurring in industrial plants. This paper reviewed the recent progress of oxyR regulon, focusing on members regulated; physiological processes participated; mechanics and factors affected its transcription regulation activity, in order to bring some insights to further investigation of antimicrobial resistance and mutagens screening.