Separate promoters direct expression of phoAIII, a member of the Bacillus subtilis alkaline phosphatase multigene family, during phosphate starvation and sporulation.

Alkaline phosphatase (APase) expression can be induced in Bacillus subtilis by phosphate starvation or by sporulation. We have recently shown that there are multiple APase structural genes contributing to the total alkaline phosphatase expression in B. subtilis. The expression of the alkaline phosphatase III gene (phoAIII) was analysed under both phosphate-starvation induction and sporulation induction conditions. phoAII is transcribed from two promoter regions, PV and PS. The PV promoter initiated transcription 37 bp before the translation initiation codon and was used to transcribe phoAIII during phosphate-starvation induction in vegetative cells. The PS promoter initiated transcription 119 bp before the translation initiation codon and was used during sporulation induction. Genes which have previously been shown to affect total vegatative APase, pho regulon genes phoP, phoR and phoS, affected expression of phoAIII during phosphate starvation. Genes known to affect expression of total sporulation APase, i.e. spoIIA, spoIIG and spoIIE, affected phoAIII expression during sporulation induction. Our data show that one member of the APase multigene family, phoAIII, contributes to the total APase expression both during phosphate-starvation induction and sporulation induction, and that the mechanism of regulation includes two promoters, each requiring different regulatory genes.