Specificity of Fur Binding to the Oxidative Stress Response Gene Promoter in the Facultative Anaerobic Archaeon Thermoplasma volcanium

Abstract

The genome of the facultative anaerobic thermoacidophilic archaeon Thermoplasma volcanium contains the open-reading frames (ORFs) tvsod and tvogg, which are predicted to encode a putative superoxide dismutase and an 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase, respectively. Tvsod is immediately upstream of tvogg, and these two ORFs are aligned in a head-to-tail manner in a single operon. A previous study showed that T. volcanium contains an ORF (TVN0292) encoding the ferric uptake regulator (Fur) and that the T. volcanium Fur protein (TvFur) binds to its own promoter in a metal-dependent manner in vitro. Here, we demonstrated that TvFur also binds to the tvsod-tvogg promoter and determined the TvFur-binding sequences in the tvsod-tvogg promoter by DNaseI footprinting analysis. These results suggest that Fur is required for resistance against reactive oxygen species in this facultative anaerobic archaeon.