Zinc is an essential nutrient for all cells, but remarkably little is known regarding bacterial zinc transport and its regulation. We have identified three of the key components acting to maintain zinc homeostasis in Bacillus subtilis. Zur is a metalloregulatory protein related to the ferric uptake repressor (Fur) family of regulators and is required for the zinc-specific repression of two oper...

A bioassay for zinc status in humans has been sought due to the importance of zinc, an essential trace metal, for many divergent functions in the human body; however, a sensitive bioassay for zinc status in humans is lacking. To address this issue, we established gene expression profiles of human lymphoblastoid cells treated with 0 or 30 micro mol/L ZnSO(4) using microarray technology. A limite...

The bacterial xanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (GPT) gene was fused to a metal-responsive promoter and transfected into a murine cell line. Clonal transformants harboring metal-responsive or nonresponsive GPT genes (using a thymidine kinase promoter) were then studied for the loss of transfected gene function either during periods of constitutive expression or during periods of induce...

Tissue zinc is used to define zinc availability, but deposition is far from the absorption site and only a fraction of absorbed zinc is deposited. Alternatively, zinc availability may be defined by quantifying expression of specific zinc-responsive genes in the small intestine. Metallothionein (MT) protein binds zinc and its mRNA expression is reported to reflect zinc status. A real time polyme...

Zinc deficiency reduces intake and produces an unusual approximately 3.5-d cycle of intake in rats. The mechanism underlying the anorexia and cycling has not yet been defined; current hypotheses suggest that alterations in amino acid metabolism and neurotransmitter concentrations may be a part of this anorexia. Recent reports indicate that appetite-stimulating neuropeptide Y (NPY) may be elevat...

Proteases play a crucial role in remodeling the bacterial proteome in response to changes in cellular environment. Escherichia coli ZntR, a zinc-responsive transcriptional regulator, was identified by proteomic experiments as a likely ClpXP substrate, suggesting that protein turnover may play a role in regulation of zinc homeostasis. When intracellular zinc levels are high, ZntR activates expre...

Ethanolamine kinase catalyzes the committed step in the synthesis of phosphatidylethanolamine via the CDP-ethanolamine branch of the Kennedy pathway. Regulation of the EKI1-encoded ethanolamine kinase by the essential nutrient zinc was examined in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The level of ethanolamine kinase activity increased when zinc was depleted from the growth medium. This regulation correlat...