Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.7.7.6 (RNA polymerase)
 34,946 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Clostridium difficile, a causative agent of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and its potentially lethal form, pseudomembranous colitis, produces two large protein toxins that are responsible for the cellular damage associated with the disease. The level of toxin production appears to be critical for determining the severity of the disease, but the mechanism by which toxin synthesis is regulated is unknown. The product of a gene, txeR, that lies just upstream of the tox gene cluster was shown to be needed for tox gene expression in vivo and to activate promoter-specific transcription of the tox genes in vitro in conjunction with RNA polymerases from C. difficile, Bacillus subtilis, or Escherichia coli. TxeR was shown to function as an alternative sigma factor for RNA polymerase. Because homologs of TxeR regulate synthesis of toxins and a bacteriocin in other Clostridium species, TxeR appears to be a prototype for a novel mode of regulation of toxin genes.
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PMID:Regulation of toxin synthesis in Clostridium difficile by an alternative RNA polymerase sigma factor. 1132 Feb 20

Many Clostridium species are pathogenic for humans and animals, and most of the resulting diseases, such as tetanus, botulism, gas gangrene and pseudomembranous colitis, are due to the production of potent extracellular toxins. The biochemical mechanisms of action of Clostridium toxins have been extensively studied in the past ten years. However, detailed information about the regulation of toxin gene expression has only recently emerged. TcdR, BotR, TetR and UviA are now known to be related alternative RNA polymerase sigma factors that drive transcription of toxin A and toxin B genes in C. difficile, the neurotoxin genes in C. botulinum and C. tetani, and a bacteriocin gene in C. perfringens. Although the Clostridium sigma factors have some similarity to members of the ECF sigma factor group, they differ sufficiently in structure and function so that they have been assigned to a new group within the sigma(70)-family.
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PMID:Regulation of toxin and bacteriocin synthesis in Clostridium species by a new subgroup of RNA polymerase sigma-factors. 1643 1