The whiA sporulation gene of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), which plays a key role in switching aerial hyphae away from continued extension growth and toward sporulation septation, was cloned by complementation of whiA mutants. DNA sequencing of the wild-type allele and five whiA mutations verified that whiA is a gene encoding a protein with homologues in all gram-positive bacteria whose genome sequence is known, whether of high or low G؉C content. No function has been attributed to any of these WhiA-like proteins. In most cases, as in S. coelicolor, the whiA-like gene is downstream of other conserved genes in an operon-like cluster. Phenotypic analysis of a constructed disruption mutant confirmed that whiA is essential for sporulation. whiA is transcribed from at least two promoters, the most downstream of which is located within the preceding gene and is strongly up-regulated when colonies are undergoing sporulation. The up-regulation depends on a functional whiA gene, suggesting positive autoregulation, although it is not known whether this is direct or indirect. Unlike the promoters of some other sporulation-regulatory genes, the whiA promoter does not depend on the sporulation-specific factor encoded by whiG.Dispersal of the mycelial organism Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) occurs by the formation of long chains of spores from aerial hyphae. A critical stage in this process is the subdivision of a multigenomic apical aerial hyphal compartment into many unigenomic prespore compartments by the synchronous formation of regularly spaced sporulation septa (26,38). At least six genetic loci (whiA, whiB, whiG, whiH, whiI, and whiJ) are needed for sporulation septation (8, 10), in addition to cell division genes that are also involved in vegetative growth (24,25). These six early whi loci appear to play no role in vegetative growth. Mutations in them have pleiotropic effects on the later stages of sporulation, including weak or undetectable transcription of the genes responsible for the production of grey spore pigment (20), hence the white colony phenotype after which they were named (18). Transcription of sigF, which encodes a late sporulation sigma factor, is also dependent on these early whi genes (21, 28). The complex early whi mutant phenotypes suggest that some or all of the six "early" whi genes encode regulatory elements. Indeed, whiG encodes a sigma factor ( WhiG [11,37]), whiH encodes a repressor-like protein (31), and whiI encodes a response regulator-like protein (1); the product of whiB has features that resemble those of some transcription factors (13,34). Mutations in some other more recently discovered genes also affect sporulation septation but in a more allele-specific manner (30).This paper is concerned with whiA. Like whiB mutants, whiA and whiA whiB double mutants have tightly coiled aerial hyphae that are markedly longer than normal spore chains, contain uncondensed DNA, and lack sporulation septa and readily detectable FtsZ (9, 15, 33). whiA and whiB are therefore believed to play a role in th...