Resumen
In this work we study the preferential use of carbon sources in the bacterium Escherichia coli. To that end we engineered transcriptional fusions of the reporter gene gfpmut2, downstream of transcription-factor promoters, and analyzed their activity under several conditions. The chosen transcription factors are known to regulate catabolic operons associated to the consumption of alternative sugars. The obtained results indicate the following hierarchical order of sugar preference in this bacterium: glucose > arabinose > sorbitol > galactose. Further dynamical results allowed us to conjecture that this hierarchical behavior might be operated by at least the following three regulatory strategies: 1) the coordinated activation of the corresponding operons by the global regulator catabolic repressor protein (CRP), 2) their asymmetrical responses to specific and unspecific sugars and, 3) the architecture of the associated gene regulatory networks.
Edgardo Galán Vásquez
Investigador Asociado C
Estoy interesado en las lineas de investigación de Ciencia de datos aplicada a datos biológicos, Bioinformática, Biología de sistemas y redes complejas.