In vitro expression of the Escherichia coli nusA-infB operon

The expression of the nusA-infB operon has been investigated using an in vitro system based on the formation of the first dipeptide of the gene product. A series of plasmids containing various deletions of the operon were used as templates in this study. Of the four genes coding for protein products, 15Ka, nusA, infB, and 15Kb, only 15Ka was not expressed in this dipeptide system. The initial dipeptides for the other gene products, fMet-Asn (pnusA), fMet-Thr (IF-2 alpha), and fMet-Ala (p15Kb), were synthesized even from plasmids lacking the primary promoters. It appears that secondary (internal) promoters in the operon can efficiently direct the expression of these genes. No regulation of the expression was observed with IF-2 alpha, but pnusA inhibited the expression of the nusA gene (autoregulation) as well as the p15b gene. Experiments using an uncoupled system indicated that the effect of pnusA on nusA expression was at the level of transcription, but that both a transcriptional and a post-transcriptional effect of pnusA was seen on 15Kb expression.