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Saru, A Sara Homolog, Is Repressed By Sart And Regulates Virulence Genes In Staphylococcus Aureus, Adhar C. Manna, Ambrose L. Cheung

Dartmouth Scholarship

In searching the Staphylococcus aureus genome, we previously identified sarT, a homolog of sarA, which encodes a repressor for alpha-hemolysin synthesis. Adjacent but transcribed divergently to sarT is sarU, which encodes a 247-residue polypeptide, almost twice the length of SarA. Sequence alignment disclosed that SarU, like SarS, which is another SarA homolog, could be envisioned as a molecule with two halves, with each half being homologous to SarA. SarU, as a member of the SarA family proteins, disclosed conservation of basic residues within the helix-turn-helix motif and within the beta hairpin loop, two putative DNA binding domains within this protein …