The DNA-binding network of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infects 30% of all humans and kills someone every 20-30 s. Here we report genome-wide binding for similar to 80% of all predicted MTB transcription factors (TFs), and assayed global expression following induction of each TF. The MTB DNA-binding network consists of similar to 16,000 binding events from 154 TFs. We identify >50 TF-DNA consensus motifs and >1,150 promoter-binding events directly associated with proximal gene regulation. An additional similar to 4,200 binding events are in promoter windows and represent strong candidates for direct transcriptional regulation under appropriate environmental conditions. However, we also identify >10,000 'dormant' DNA-binding events that cannot be linked directly with proximal transcriptional control, suggesting that widespread DNA binding may be a common feature that should be considered when developing global models of coordinated gene expression.