CodY is required for nutritional repression of Bacillus subtilis genetic competence.

The acquisition of genetic competence by Bacillus subtilis is repressed when the growth medium contains Casamino Acids. This repression was shown to be exerted at the level of expression from the promoters of the competence-regulatory genes srfA and comK and was relieved in strains carrying a null mutation in the codY gene. DNase I footprinting experiments showed that purified CodY binds directly to the srfA and comK promoter regions.