Expression, purification and functional characterization of AmiA of acetamidase operon of Mycobacterium smegmatis

Regulation of gene expression is one of the mechanisms of virulence in pathogenic organisms. In this context, we would like to understand the gene regulation of acetamidase enzyme of Mycobacterium smegmatis, which is the first reported inducible enzyme in mycobacteria. The acetamidase is highly inducible and the expression of this enzyme is increased 100-fold when the substrate acetamide is added. The acetamidase structural gene (amiE) is found immediately downstream of three predicted open reading frames (ORFs). Three of these genes along with a divergently expressed ORF are predicted to form an operon and involved in the regulation of acetamidase enzyme. Here we report expression, purification and functional characterization of AmiA which is one of these predicted ORFs. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that AmiA binds to the region between the amiA and amiD near the predicted promoter (P2). Over-expression of AmiA significantly lowered the expression of acetamidase compared to the wild type as demonstrated by qRT-PCR and SDS-PAGE. We conclude that AmiA binds near P2 promoter and acts as a repressor in the regulation of acetamidase operon. The described work is a further step forward toward broadening the knowledge on understanding of the complex gene regulatory mechanism of Mycobacterium sp.