SecA is an essential ATP-driven motor protein that binds to presecretory or membrane proteins and the translocon and promotes the translocation or membrane integration of these proteins. secA is subject to a protein secretion-specific form of regulation, whereby its translation is elevated during secretion-limiting conditions. A novel mechanism that promotes this regulation involves translational pausing within the gene upstream of secA, secM. The secM translational pause prevents formation of an RNA helix that normally blocks secA translational initiation. The duration of this pause is controlled by the rate of secretion of nascent SecM, which in turn depends on its signal peptide and a functional translocon. We characterized the atypical secM signal peptide and found that mutations within the amino-terminal region specifically affect the secM translational pause and secA regulation, while mutations in the hydrophobic core region affect SecM secretion as well as translational pausing and secA regulation. In addition, mutational analysis of the 3 end of secM allowed us to identify a conserved region that is required to promote the translational pause that appears to be operative at the peptide level. Together, our results provide direct support for the secM translational pause model of secA regulation, and they pinpoint key sequences within secM that promote this important regulatory system.In bacteria nascent or fully synthesized presecretory or membrane proteins are selectively targeted to the translocon by interactions with SecB and SecA or the signal recognition particle and its receptor (3,24,40,47,50). These pathways converge at the translocon, which consists of the integral membrane proteins SecYEG and SecDFyajC and the peripheral membrane protein SecA ATPase. SecYE forms the preprotein channel and SecA receptor (10,20,27,30), while SecG and SecDFyajC greatly enhance the rate of protein translocation by regulating SecA membrane cycling (11,28,34). SecA is central to protein translocation since it binds to the signal peptides or transmembrane segments of presecretory and membrane proteins, interacts with the SecB chaperone to promote release of the bound preprotein, and acts as a motor protein to drive protein translocation at the translocon (for a review, see reference 26). Considerable evidence suggests that SecA undergoes ATP-driven cycles of insertion and retraction at SecYE, thereby promoting the stepwise translocation of proteins across the plasma membrane (12, 13, 52).The selectivity of the translocon for its protein cargo is remarkable, since erroneous translocation of cytoplasmic proteins is essentially undetectable. Current evidence suggests that the translocon possesses a proofreading activity that is responsible for aborting the translocation of preproteins that lack a functional signal peptide (for a review, see reference 7). prl alleles of secA, secY, secE, and secG have been isolated that allow translocation of preproteins with a defective signal peptide (4,15,17,23,48). A recent study sugge...