However, this explanation does not fit with the observation that introduction of more Pm copies does not lead to a corresponding stimulation of expression even if total XylS levels are increased beyond the threshold value (Figure 3). Therefore, the upper maximum level of active dimers in the cells seems to be the result of inherent properties of the XylS molecule itself. Figure 6 Visualization of the hypothesis explaining XylS behaviour at various intracellular concentrations. The numbers of DNA or XylS molecules are not meant to represent the actual numbers in the cells. Only aggregates formed from active dimers of the protein are considered. At low XylS concentrations a certain percentage of the dimerized XylS AZD1152 research buy molecules will

activate transcription (a); the amount of activated Pm promoters will increase selleck proportionally to XylS amounts up to a certain treshold value (b); when the threshold value is exceeded, XylS dimers will aggregate and become inactive, while the amount of active dimers remains constant (c). For StEP-13 a higher percentage of Trichostatin A purchase XylS molecules will dimerize at low XylS concentrations, resulting in more transcribed DNA (d); when the saturating concentration for wild type XylS is reached, there will already be some aggregation of dimers in case of StEP-13 (e), and as for wild type this will increase further as more XylS is expressed (f). In the absence of m-toluate, only a very small fraction

of the XylS molecules will form dimers and these will activate transcription from Pm, aggregation does not start at the XylS expression levels depicted here (g, h, i). The XylS variant StEP-13 is interesting in that it was previously found to strongly stimulate expression levels from Pm, compared to the wild type XylS [10]. In the referred study the regulator was expressed from Ps2, now known to produce only sub-saturating concentrations of XylS with respect to activation of Pm. It is therefore interesting that the experiments reported here show that when the expression

level of StEP-13 was increased the maximum out-put from Pm was near the same as for wild type XylS. According to the reasoning above this seems to mean that StEP-13 is not able to form higher concentrations of active dimers than wild Cyclin-dependent kinase 3 type XylS, but it reaches the maximum at lower inducer (m-toluate) or regulator concentrations (Figure 6d-e). StEP-13 was generated by complex mutagenesis procedures that may have changed its functional properties in more than one way. This prediction fits with the observation that it responds more efficiently to low inducer concentrations, while it is also more active in the absence of m-toluate. Both observations are in agreement with an inherently more efficient ability to form dimers, both in the absence (see below) and presence of m-toluate. This could involve higher affinity for the inducer, but no change in the properties related to formation of higher level aggregates from XylS dimers.