Regulation of E. coli phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase operon in vivo

The phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase operon is composed of two adjacent, cotranscribed genes, pheS and pheT, corresponding respectively to the small and large subunit of phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase. A fusion between the regulatory regions of phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase operon and the lac structural genes has been constructed to study the regulation of the operon. The pheS,T operon was shown, using the fusion, to be derepressed when phenylalanine concentrations were limiting in a leaky auxotroph mutated in the phenylalanine biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, a mutational alteration in the phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase gene, bradytrophic for phenylalanine, was also found to be derepressed under phenylalanine starvation. These results indicate that the pheS,T operon is derepressed when the level of tRNA^Phe aminoacylation is lowered. By analogy with other well-studied amino acid biosynthetic operons known to be controlled by attenuation, these in vivo results indicate that phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase levels are controlled by an attenuation-like mechanism.