Copper homeostasis-related genes in three separate transcriptional units regulated by CsoR in Corynebacterium glutamicum

In Corynebacterium glutamicum R, CsoR acts as a transcriptional repressor not only of the cognate copA-csoR operon but also of the copZ1-copB-cgR_0126 operon. It is predicted that copA and copB encode P-type ATPases for copper efflux and copZ1 encodes a metallochaperone. Here, a CsoR-binding motif was found upstream of another copZ-like gene, copZ2, and the in vitro binding of the CsoR protein to its promoter was confirmed. The monocistronic copZ2 transcript was upregulated by excess copper in a CsoR-dependent manner. Among the extended CsoR regulon, deletion of copA, but not of copB, copZ1, or copZ2, resulted in decreased resistance to copper, indicating a major role of the CopA copper exporter in the multilayered systems for copper homeostasis. A redundant role of copZ1 and copZ2 in copper resistance was also indicated by double deletion of these genes. The copper-dependent activation of the copA, copZ1, and copZ2 promoters was confirmed by lacZ reporter assays, consistent with the coordinated derepression of the three transcriptional units. The copZ1 promoter activity showed the highest responsiveness to copper and was also induced by excess zinc and nickel. Furthermore, zinc-inducible expression observed for the CsoR-regulated genes was independent of Zur, recently found to uniquely act as a transcriptional repressor of zinc efflux genes. These results implied complicated cross talk between homeostasis of multiple transition metals.