Light activation of the sigmaB-mediated general stress-response of Bacillus subtilis

The sigma(B)-dependent general stress response in the common soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis can be elicited by a range of stress factors, such as starvation or an ethanol-, salt-, or heat-shock, via a complex upstream signaling cascade. Additionally, sigma(B) can be activated by blue light, via the phototropin homologue YtvA, a component of the environmental branch of the signaling cascade. The genome-wide transcriptomes of B. subtilis reported here show that sigma(B) can activated by blue as well as red light via RsbP/RspQ, the energy branch of sigma(B) upstream signaling cascade. A 16 chip genome-wide expression study using RNA recovered from B.subtilis strain PB565/pYtvA under light and dark conditions before and after induction with IPTG, and from B.subtilis strain PB565 under light and dark conditions. Each B.subtilis subsp. subtilis strain 168 NC_000964 chip measures the expression level of 4,104 genes in two-fold from with eight 60-mer probe pairs (PM/MM) per gene.