Analysis of cloned structural and regulatory genes for carbohydrate utilization in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO

Five of the genes required for phosphorylative catabolism of glucose in Pseudomonas aeruginosa were ordered on two different chromosomal fragments. Analysis of a previously isolated 6.0-kb EcoRI fragment containing three structural genes showed that the genes were present on a 4.6-kb fragment in the order glucose-binding protein (gltB)-glucokinase (glk)-6-phosphogluconate dehydratase (edd). Two genes, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (zwf) and 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate aldolase (eda), shown by transductional analysis to be linked to gltB and edd, were cloned on a separate 11-kb BamHI chromosomal DNA fragment and then subcloned and ordered on a 7-kb fragment. The 6.0-kb EcoRI fragment had been shown to complement a regulatory mutation, hexR, which caused noninducibility of four glucose catabolic enzymes. In this study, hexR was mapped coincident with edd. A second regulatory function, hexC, was cloned within a 0.6-kb fragment contiguous to the edd gene but containing none of the structural genes. The phenotypic effect of the hexC locus, when present on a multicopy plasmid, was elevated expression of glucokinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, 6-phosphogluconate dehydratase, and 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate aldolase activities in the absence of inducer.