The ATP-binding motif in AcoK is required for regulation of acetoin catabolism in Klebsiella pneumoniae CG43

Many bacterial species utilize acetoin as a carbon source. In Klebsiella pneumoniae, the utilization of acetoin is catalyzed by an acetoin dehydrogenase complex encoded by the acoABCD operon, which is positively regulated in the presence of acetoin by the transcriptional factor AcoK. AcoK contains a LuxR type DNA-binding domain at the C-terminal region and putative Walker A and B nucleotide-binding motifs in the N-terminal region. The comprehensive deletion and mutation study performed here shows that mutations in the putative Walker A motif result in a significant reduction of ATP hydrolysis and trans-activation by AcoK of acoABCD expression, presumably due to a loss of ATP-binding ability. AcoK was shown to bind specifically to nucleotides -66 to -36 of the acoABCD promoter, though the DNA-binding ability was not affected by the Walker A motif mutation. Thus, this study provides an additional example of how a member of the signal transduction ATPases with numerous domains family activates its target gene expression.