All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background The genus Pseudomonas is an important group of microorganisms that occupy a wide variety of habitats including soil [1], the rhizosphere [2],
food [3] and mammalian hosts [4]. Some species are important plant or human pathogens, whereas others are involved in processes such as bioremediation [5], biocontrol [6–8], nutrient cycling [9] or biotechnological processes [10]. A key aspect of the lifestyle of Pseudomonads is their ability to adapt, grow and compete in a wide variety of habitats. Thus, Pseudomonads require great flexibility in controlling their diverse array of metabolic pathways and, like most microorganisms, have global regulatory GDC-0449 solubility dmso systems that ensure that the best nutrient source is utilised and almost depleted before less favoured nutrient sources are exploited [11–13]. Pseudomonads favour the utilisation of organic acids, particularly tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediates, and amino acids over various other carbon sources such as carbohydrates
or hydrocarbons [14]. This is in contrast to the majority of well-studied Enterobacteriaceae Smad signaling and Firmicutes, which favour glucose and use a system known as carbon catabolite repression (CCR) or catabolite repression control (CRC) to regulate carbon utilisation. The mechanism of CCR in Enterobacteriaceae and Firmicutes centres on a protein phosphorylation cascade and also involves transcriptional regulation mediated through cyclic AMP (cAMP) binding to the cAMP receptor protein (Crp) (for review see [11, 12]). Although Pseudomonads possess a Crp homolog, Vfr, this protein is not involved in carbon source regulation, at least in P. aeruginosa PAO1 [15]. In fact, the CRC mechanism used by Pseudomonads to regulate carbon source utilisation is fundamentally different to CCR of Enterobacteriaceae and Firmicutes. A central mediator of CRC is the
Crc protein, which acts as a post-transcriptional regulator of target genes [16]. The post-transcriptional action of Crc relies on the binding of Crc to an unpaired A-rich motif in the 5′-end of a target mRNA causing inhibition of the initiation of translation [17, 18]. It is still not fully understood how Crc activity is regulated in different Pseudomonas species, nor whether a common unified regulatory system is employed. In P. aeruginosa, activity very is regulated by small RNA, CrcZ, which has five A-rich motifs, that binds to the Crc protein and sequesters it [17]. Levels of the CrcZ sRNA, in turn, are regulated by a two-component system (CbrA/CbrB) and by RpoN. Interestingly, CbrAB and NtrBC form a network to control the C/N balance in both P. aeruginosa and P. fluorescens [19–21]. Furthermore, the presence of a readily available nitrogen source enhances the magnitude of CRC [22], two observations that are suggestive of a link between regulatory systems controlling C and N utilisation.