Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 21, 2025

Recombinant Protein Expression, Crystallization, and Biophysical Studies of a Bacillus-conserved Nucleotide Pyrophosphorylase, BcMazG
Published on: May 16, 2017
Identifying, Characterizing, and Engineering a Phenolic Acid-Responsive Transcriptional Factor from Bacillus
Chenyi Li1, Yuyang Zhou1, Yusong Zou1
1School of Chemical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, United States.
Abstract:
Transcriptional factors-based biosensors are commonly used in metabolic engineering for inducible control of gene expression and related applications such as high-throughput screening and dynamic pathway regulations. Mining for novel transcriptional factors is essential for expanding the usability of these toolsets. Here, we report the identification, characterization, and engineering of a phenolic acid responsive regulator PadR from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (BaPadR). This BaPadR-based biosensor system showed a unique ligand preference and exhibited a high output strength comparable to that of commonly used inducible expression systems. Through engineering the DNA binding region of BaPadR, we further enhanced the dynamic range of the biosensor system. The DNA sequences that are responsible for BaPadR recognition were located by promoter truncation and hybrid promoter building. To further explore the tunability of the sensor system, base substitutions were performed on the BaPadR binding region of the phenolic acid decarboxylase promoter (PpadC) and the hybrid promoter. This novel biosensor system can serve as a valuable tool in future synthetic biology applications.
Related Concept Videos
Prokaryotic Transcriptional Activators and Repressors
Transcription of prokaryotic...
Bacterial RNA Polymerase
In most genes, the transcription site is a single base present upstream of the coding sequence. Though RNAP is a catalytically efficient enzyme, it does not recognize...
Transcription Attenuation in Prokaryotes
There are several different mechanisms used to attenuate transcription. In ribosome mediated...
Gene Regulation During Sporulation
RNA Polymerase II Accessory Proteins
Cell Specific Gene Expression

