σ38 in Escherichia coli is required for expression of a subset
of stationary phase genes. However, the promoter elements
for σ38-dependent genes are virtually indistinguishable from
that for σ70-dependent house-keeping genes. hdeABp is a
σ38-dependent promoter and LEE5p is a σ70-dependent
promoter, but both are repressed by H-NS, a bacterial histone-
like protein, which acts at promoter upstream sequence.
We swapped the promoter upstream sequences of the two
promoters and found that the σ dependency was switched.
This was further verified using lacUV5 core promoter. The
results
suggested that the determinant for σ38-dependent
promoter lies in the promoter upstream sequence.