Genomic Insights into Gene Regulation of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough

Abstract

Traditional laboratory studies of the sulfate-reducing bacteria have focused primarily on the biochemistry of the organisms. As genomic sequences of sulfate-reducing species have become available, insights have been gained into the metabolic and regulatory networks of these organisms. A computational analysis is reported of the transcriptional regulatory networks of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough, the first mesophilic gram-negative sulfate-reducing bacterium for which a genome sequence is available. A set of conserved DNA motifs were derived from libraries of potential promoter regions of putative D. vulgaris regulons with the AlignACE program suite. Although one motif showed similarity to the Escherichia coli GlpR binding site, most of the motifs returned were apparently unique. A number of expected orthologs for regulatory proteins have not yet been recognized in D. vulgaris.