Phosphorylation of a bacterial activator protein, OmpR, by a protein kinase, EnvZ, results in stimulation of its DNA-binding ability.

The Escherichia coli OmpR protein is an activator protein specific for the ompF and ompC genes, which respectively encode the outer membrane proteins, OmpF and OmpC. The EnvZ protein is a protein kinase specific for the OmpR protein. In this study, we compared the in vitro DNA-binding ability of the phosphorylated form of the OmpR protein with that of the non-phosphorylated form by means of non-denaturing gel retardation analysis and DNase I footprinting analysis. The results indicate that the phosphorylation of the OmpR protein results in stimulation of its in vitro DNA-binding ability as to both the ompF and ompC promoter DNAs.