The NocR repressor-activator protein regulates expression of the nocB and nocR genes of Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

The NocR protein of Agrobacterium tumefaciens was found to regulate expression of the divergently transcribed nocB and nocR genes of the pTiT37 nopaline catabolism (noc) region. Experiments using the firefly luciferase (luc) gene as reporter demonstrated that NocR represses and activates transcription from the nocB promoter in the absence and presence of nopaline, respectively. NocR also negatively autoregulates its own synthesis irrespective of the presence of nopaline. Regulation of expression of both nocB and nocR is mediated by binding of the NocR protein to the nocR promoter. A 12 bp symmetrical sequence, which lies 3 bp downstream of the -10 hexamer of the nocR promoter, was confirmed to be essential for binding of the NocR protein. Functional localization of the nocB and nocR promoters verified that they do not overlap at all, and that the interrupted dyad, at which NocR binds, is 137 bp upstream of the regulated nocB promoter. The in vivo and in vitro results described here and those published previously suggest that a novel type of regulatory mechanism, which may involve changes in DNA topology, controls gene expression in the noc operon of pTiT37.