The nusB5 mutant of Escherichia coli was originally selected for reduced ability to support the antitermination of transcription that is mediated by the gene N product of bacteriophage X. By analyzing pulse-labeled RNA with an RNA-DNA ifiter hybridization technique, we have shown that, in the nusB5 mutant, the ratio of promoterproximal rRNA transcripts to promoter-distal transcripts is increased at least by a factor of 1.6; that is, in the absence of the functional nusB gene product, premature transcription termination takes place within rRNA operons. These results demonstrate that rRNA transcription in E. coli utilizes an antitermination mechanism that has at least one factor in common with the phage X system, the nusB gene product. We have also observed that the transcription initiation frequency at rRNA promoters is increased in the nusB5 strain and that this strain accumulates 30S and 50S ribosomal subunits at approximately the same rate as the parent. Thus, it appears thatE. coli compensates for premature termination of rRNA transcription by derepressing rRNA operon expression. The increase in rRNA promoter activity in the nusB5 mutant is accompanied by a parallel derepression of synthesis of tRNAs that are not encoded by rRNA operons. These results are consistent with a model for negative feedback regulation of rRNA and tRNA synthesis by products of rRNA operons.In Escherichia coli, transcription often terminates prematurely within polypeptide-encoding operons that contain nonsense mutations ("polar" mutations), presumably because the absence of translation exposes termination signals that are not normally active (1). Each of the seven rRNA operons of E. coli encodes =5000 bases of untranslated RNA that is processed to form the 16S, 23S, and 5S rRNAs as well as spacer and distal tRNAs (2, 3). It has been proposed that an antitermination mechanism functions during rRNA transcription to prevent premature termination within these operons (4, 5). In fact, it has been shown experimentally that termination sites within transposons and insertion elements (4,(6)(7)(8) Since the antitermination mechanism proposed for E. coli rRNA transcription may be similar to the phage X system (see ref. 5), we studied rRNA transcription in various nus mutants. The results presented in this paper show that premature transcription termination in fact takes place within rRNA operons in the nusB5 mutant. In addition, we analyzed the way in which regulation of rRNA and tRNA expression is altered in response to nusB5-induced premature termination of rRNA transcription. The results of these experiments are consistent with the feedback regulation model for rRNA and tRNA synthesis proposed (18, 19). (22). This probe covers the region from the fourth base downstream of the rrnB P2 start site to the 83rd nucleotide of mature 16S RNA (see Fig. 1). All other methods are described in the figure and table legends.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
Premature Transcription Termination Within rRNAOperons Caused by the nusB5 Mutation. To stu...