The evolutionary impact of Intragenic FliA Promoters in Proteobacteria
Authors: Fitzgerald Devon M. , Smith Carol , Lapierre Pascal , Wade Joseph T. 
Published: September 2017

Recent work has revealed that large numbers of promoters in bacteria are located inside genes. In contrast, almost all studies of transcription have focused on promoters upstream of genes. Bacterial promoters are recognized by Sigma factors that associate with initiating RNA polymerase. InEscherichia coli, one Sigma factor recognizes the majority of promoters, and six “alternative” Sigma factors recognize specific subsets of promoters. One of these alternative Sigma factors, FliA (σ28), recognizes promoters upstream of many flagellar genes. We previously showed that mostE. coliFliA binding sites are located inside genes. However, it was unclear whether these intragenic binding sites represent active promoters. Here, we construct and assay transcriptional promoter-lacZfusions for all 52 putative FliA promoters previously identified by ChIP-seq. These experiments, coupled with integrative analysis of published genome-scale transcriptional datasets, reveal that most intragenic FliA binding sites are active promoters that transcribe highly unstable RNAs. Additionally, we show that widespread intragenic FliA-dependent transcription is a conserved phenomenon, but that the specific promoters are not themselves conserved. We conclude that intragenic FliA-dependent promoters and the resulting RNAs are unlikely to have important regulatory functions. Nonetheless, one intragenic FliA promoter is broadly conserved, and constrains evolution of the overlapping protein-coding gene. Thus, our data indicate that intragenic regulatory elements can influence protein evolution in bacteria, and suggest that the impact of intragenic regulatory sequences on genome evolution should be considered more broadly.

AUTHOR SUMMARY

Recent genome-scale studies of bacterial transcription have revealed thousands of promoters inside genes. In a few cases, these promoters have been shown to transcribe functional RNAs. However, it is unclear whether most intragenic promoters have important biological function. Similarly, there are likely to be thousands of intragenic binding sites for transcription factors, but very few have been functionally characterized. Moreover, it is unclear what impact intragenic promoters and transcription factor binding sites have on evolution of the overlapping genes. In this study, we focus on FliA, a broadly conserved Sigma factor that is responsible for initiating transcription of many flagellar genes. We previously showed that FliA directs RNA polymerase to ~50 genomic sites inEscherichia coli. In our current study, we show that while most intragenic FliA promoters are actively transcribed, very few are conserved in other species. This suggests that most FliA promoters are not functional. Nonetheless, one intragenic FliA promoter is highly conserved, and we show that this promoter constrains evolution of the overlapping protein-coding gene. Given the enormous number of regulatory DNA sites within genes, we propose that the evolution of many genes is constrained by these elements.