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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, April 2005, p. 1587-1590, Vol. 49, No. 4
0066-4804/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AAC.49.4.1587-1590.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Different Rifampin Sensitivities of Escherichia coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis RNA Polymerases Are Not Explained by the Difference in the ß-Subunit Rifampin Regions I and II

N. Zenkin,^1, A. Kulbachinskiy,^1*, I. Bass,¹ and V. Nikiforov^1,2

Institute of Molecular Genetics, Moscow, Russia,¹ Public Health Research Institute, Newark, New Jersey²

Received 19 June 2004/ Returned for modification 11 September 2004/ Accepted 27 November 2004

Mycobacterium tuberculosis RNA polymerase is 1,000-fold more sensitive to rifampin than Escherichia coli RNA polymerase. Chimeric E. coli RNA polymerase in which the ß-subunit segment encompassing rifampin regions I and II (amino acids [aa] 463 through 590) was replaced with the corresponding region from M. tuberculosis (aa 382 through 509) did not show an increased sensitivity to the antibiotic. Thus, the difference in amino acid sequence between the rifampin regions I and II of the two species does not account for the difference in rifampin sensitivity of the two polymerases.

N.Z. and A.K. contributed equally to this work.