Expression of ToxR, the transcriptional activator of the virulence factors in Vibrio cholerae, is modulated by the heat shock response.

The toxR gene of Vibrio cholerae encodes a transmembrane, DNA-binding protein that positively controls transcription of the genes for cholera toxin, TCP pili, and other proteins important in cholera pathogenesis. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the toxR upstream region has revealed that the heat shock gene htpG, encoding the bacterial homologue of the eukaryotic Hsp90 protein, was located immediately upstream and was divergently transcribed from toxR. Using lacZ transcriptional fusions, we have shown that neither toxR nor htpG expression was regulated by ToxR. However, the growth temperature had a coordinate but reciprocal effect on the expression from both the toxR and htpG promoters in V. cholerae; the decrease of toxR expression between 22 degrees C and 37 degrees C was proportional to the increase of htpG expression observed within that temperature range. A similar pattern of expression of the htpG and toxR promoters was observed in the heterologous host Escherichia coli, where this regulation was controlled by the level of the E. coli rpoH (htpR) gene product, sigma-32. Consistent with the temperature-regulated expression of the V. cholerae htpG promoter in E. coli, a sequence similar to the consensus sequence of the E. coli heat shock promoters was detected upstream from the V. cholerae htpG gene. We propose a model in which the regulation of toxR expression by temperature is controlled by the level of sigma-32 (RpoH) RNA polymerase.