Molecular characterization of flgM, a gene encoding a negative regulator of flagellin synthesis in Salmonella typhimurium.

The expression of flagellin in Salmonella typhimurium is coupled to the assembly of complete flagella. Mutations which disrupt this coupling define a gene, flgM, which represses the expression of the flagellin genes in strains with mutations in the basal body, switch, or hook flagellar gene (K. L. Gillen and K. T. Hughes, J. Bacteriol. 173:2301-2310, 1991). Complementation studies demonstrated that the flgM gene is contained within a 600-bp cloned DNA fragment. Sequence analysis revealed that this fragment carries a small open reading frame corresponding to a 97-amino-acid protein. The FlgM protein observed in a T7-mediated expression system showed an apparent molecular mass of 9.5 kDa, similar to the predicted size of 10.6 kDa. Upstream of the flgM coding region is a putative promoter sequence which shows strong homology to that thought to be recognized by the flagellin-specific sigma factor (FliA). Consistent with the use of this promoter in vivo, promoter mapping by primer extension demonstrated a transcriptional start site 11 bases downstream from the center of the putative -10 promoter element, which was dependent on functional FliA for full expression.