Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (Sep 2014)
Bacterial sigma factors as targets for engineered or synthetic transcriptional control
Abstract
Sigma (σ) factors are the predominant constituents of transcription regulation in bacteria. σ factors recruit the core RNA polymerase (RNAP) to recognize promoters with specific DNA sequences. Recently engineering of transcriptional regulators has become a significant tool for strain engineering. The present review summarizes the recent advances in σ factor based engineering or synthetic design. The manipulation of σ factors presents insights into the bacterial stress tolerance and metabolite productivity. We envision more synthetic design based on σ factors that can be used to tune the regulatory network of bacteria.
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