Transcriptional effects of CRP* expression in Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli exhibits diauxic growth in sugar mixtures due to CRP-mediated catabolite repression and inducer exclusion related to phosphotransferase system enzyme activity. Replacement of the native crp gene with a catabolite repression mutant (referred to as crp*) alleviates diauxic effects in E. coli and enables co-utilization of glucose and other sugars. While previous studies have examined the effects of expressing CRP* mutants on the expression of specific catabolic genes, little is known about the global transcriptional effects of CRP* expression. In this study, we compare the transcriptome of E. coli W3110 (expressing wild-type CRP) to that of mutant strain PC05 (expressing CRP*) in the presence and absence of glucose. Four different conditions were tested in this study: W3110 in LB medium (WT), W3110 in LB+glucose medium (WT G), PC05 in LB medium (CRP*), and PC05 in LB+glucose medium (CRP* G).