Differential regulation of riboflavin supply genes in Vibrio cholerae

Abstract

© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Riboflavin is the precursor of important redox cofactors such as flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide, required for several biological processes. Vibrio cholerae, a pathogenic bacterium responsible for the cholera disease, possesses the ability to biosynthesize de novo as well as to uptake riboflavin through the riboflavin biosynthetic pathway (RBP) and the RibN importer, respectively. The intra-organism relationship between riboflavin biosynthesis and uptake functions has not been studied. Results: This work determined the transcriptional organization of RBP genes and ribN in V. cholerae through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and analyzed their expression when growing with or without extracellular riboflavin using real time PCR. The RBP is organized in three transcriptional units, the major one containing ribD, ribE, ribA and ribH together with genes involved in functions not directly related to riboflavin biosy