Regulation of magnesium homeostasis in Salmonella: Mg2+ targets the mgtA transcript for degradation by RNase E

Extracellular Mg(2+) controls the activation of the Salmonella PhoP/PhoQ regulatory system. One of the adaptive responses driven by PhoP/PhoQ includes the transcriptional induction of mgtA and mgtCB, which encode two P-type Mg(2+) transporters. Mg(2+) also controls mgtA expression by a riboswitch located in its 5'-untranslated region (5'UTR). In this work, it was shown that the 5'UTR of both mgtA and mgtCB is responsible for a fine-tuned Mg(2+)-dependent regulation of these genes. Evidence was also provided that the Mg(2+) riboswitch targets the mgtA transcript for degradation by RNase E when cells are grown in high Mg(2+) environments.