Action of CAP on the malT promoter in vitro

DNase I footprinting experiments demonstrated that CAP, the cyclic AMP receptor protein of Escherichia coli, binds around position -70 at the promoter of malT, the positive regulator gene of the maltose regulon. The binding of CAP in the presence of cyclic AMP favored the subsequent specific binding of RNA polymerase. Initiation of malT transcription in vitro displayed an absolute requirement for CAP at all tested RNA polymerase concentrations. However this was not the case with a mutant promoter (malTp1), which leads to CAP-independent malT expression in vivo. In that case an effect of CAP was seen only at the lower concentrations of RNA polymerase. These results, which suggest that CAP stimulates malT expression by promoting the binding of polymerase to the promoter, are compared with those obtained in other systems.