Fe-S clusters are prosthetic groups which are necessary for the enzymatic activity of proteins involved in a plethora of metabolic pathways, such as respiration, DNA repair or transcriptional regulation. In Escherichia coli, there are five genes encoding for transcriptional regulators containing an Fe-S cluster: FNR, NsrR, IscR, SoxR and YeiL. While the functions of the first four are known, there is still little information about the function or the regulation of YeiL. In a previous project in collaboration with the BIOMICS platform, we studied the regulon of YeiL in anaerobiosis and found out that it was probably involved in the regulation of arginine metabolism. To test this hypothesis, and confirm the previous results, we cultivated two strains (WT and yeiL) under aerobiosis and we are planning to make a transcriptomic analysis of these two strains in order to uncover the YeiL regulon. By doing that, we hope to obtain a better understanding of the role of YeiL in the metabolism of E. coli.
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