The leucine-responsive regulatory proteins/feast-famine regulatory proteins: an ancient and complex class of transcriptional regulators in bacteria and archaea

Abstract

Since the discovery of the Escherichia coli leucine-responsive regulatory protein (Lrp) almost 50 years ago, hundreds of Lrp homologs have been discovered, occurring in 45% of sequenced bacteria and almost all sequenced archaea. Lrp-like proteins are often referred to as the feast/famine regulatory proteins (FFRPs), reflecting their common regulatory roles. Acting as either global or local transcriptional regulators, FFRPs detect the environmental nutritional status by sensing small effector molecules (usually amino acids) and regulate the expression of genes involved in metabolism, virulence, motility, nutrient transport, stress tolerance, and antibiotic resistance to implement appropriate behaviors for the specific ecological niche of each organism. Despite FFRPs’ complexity, a significant role in gene regulation, and prevalence throughout prokaryotes, the last comprehensive review on this family of proteins was published about a decade ago. In this review, we integrate recent notable findings regarding E. coli Lrp and other FFRPs across bacteria and archaea with previous observations to synthesize a more complete view on the mechanistic details and biological roles of this ancient class of transcription factors.

Keywords:

• Lrp
• feast-famine response proteins
• global regulator
• leucine-responsive regulatory protein
• systems biology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The present work is financially supported by an NIH grant [R35GM128637; to P.L.F.], a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship [DGE 1256260; to C.A.Z.], and an NIH Michigan Predoctoral Training in Genetics Grant [T32GM007544 to C.A.Z.].