Transcription of the Escherichia coli fumarate reductase genes (frdABCD) and their coordinate regulation by oxygen, nitrate, and fumarate.

The fumarate reductase enzyme complex allows Escherichia coli to grow anaerobically with fumarate as a terminal electron acceptor for oxidative phosphorylation when the preferred compounds oxygen and nitrate are not available. We used the pKO promoter test vectors to identify a single promoter for the frdABCD genes which encode fumarate reductase. Expression of galactokinase from the frd promoter-galK operon fusion plasmid was repressed by oxygen and by nitrate and was induced by fumarate, indicating that frd gene expression is regulated at the transcriptional level by these terminal electron acceptors. S1 nuclease analysis, using a single-stranded DNA probe from the frd promoter region and mRNA isolated from a fumarate reductase-induced culture, revealed that the frd mRNA transcript initiates with an adenine residue 93 bases prior to the start of frdA translation. No promoters internal to the frd genes were revealed with the plasmid promoter screening system. S1 nuclease analysis revealed that the frd mRNA terminates in a uridine-rich region centered at 46 bases after the last codon of frdD. A stem and loop structure previously described as the growth rate-dependent attenuator for the linked ampC gene precedes the frd mRNA terminus. This result confirms the proposal that the stem and loop structure serves the dual role of a frd terminator anaerobically and an ampC attenuator aerobically. The four frd genes encoding the subunits of the fumarate reductase complex thus comprise an operon which is regulated at the transcriptional level in response to the cellular availability of the alternate electron acceptors oxygen, nitrate, and fumarate.