Transcription and regulation of the bidirectional hydrogenase in the cyanobacterium Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120

The filamentous, heterocystous cyanobacterium Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120 (Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120) possesses an uptake hydrogenase and a bidirectional enzyme, the latter being capable of catalyzing both H-2 production and evolution. The completely sequenced genome of Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120 reveals that the five structural genes encoding the bidirectional hydrogenase (hoxEFUYH) are separated in two clusters at a distance of approximately 8.8 kb. The transcription of the hox genes was examined under nitrogen-fixing conditions, and the results demonstrate that the cluster containing hoxE and hoxF can be transcribed as one polycistronic unit together with the open reading frame alr0750. The second cluster, containing hoxU, hoxY, and hoxH, is transcribed together with alr0763 and alr0765, located between the hox genes. Moreover, alr0760 and alr0761 form an additional larger operon. Nevertheless, Northern blot hybridizations revealed a rather complex transcription pattern in which the different hox genes are expressed differently. Transcriptional start points (TSPs) were identified 66 and 57 bp upstream from the start codon of alr0750 and hoxU, respectively. The transcriptions of the two clusters containing the hox genes are both induced under anaerobic conditions concomitantly with the induction of a higher level of hydrogenase activity. An additional TSP, within the annotated alr0760, 244 bp downstream from the suggested translation start codon, was identified. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays with purified LexA from Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120 demonstrated specific interactions between the transcriptional regulator and both hox promoter regions. However, when LexA from Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 was used, the purified protein interacted only with the promoter region of the alr0750-hoxE-hoxF operon. A search of the whole Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120 genome demonstrated the presence of 216 putative LexA binding sites in total, including recA and recF. This indicates that, in addition to the bidirectional hydrogenase gene, a number of other genes, including open reading frames connected to DNA replication, recombination, and repair, may be part of the LexA regulatory network in Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120.