Structure and gene expression of the E. coli Mn-superoxide dismutase gene.

Superoxide dismutase is an enzyme which converts superoxide O2- to hydrogen peroxide. Using a single synthetic oligonucleotide 33mer, we screened the E. coli DNA library and isolated a clone containing the E. coli manganese-superoxide dismutase gene. We determined the DNA sequence. The analysis of the DNA sequence and in vivo as well as in vitro transcription has shown the following. The DNA sequence suggests two possible promoters. However, only one of them seems active during normal aerobic growth. Purified RNA polymerase initiates in vitro transcription from the same promoter. It is not clear whether the second promoter is functional. It is possible that this promoter could be activated under different growth conditions. There is an inverted repeat sequence which could form a stem-loop structure downstream of the translation stop codon TAA of the Mn-SOD gene. The results of the analysis of in vivo and in vitro RNA have shown that this is the transcription termination signal. Thus, the Mn-SOD gene constitutes a single gene operon. There is an almost perfect 19 base palindrome at the -35 region. The position and the size of the palindrome suggest that this could be a regulatory site.