Candidate attenuators were identified that regulate operons responsible for biosynthesis of branched amino acids, histidine, threonine, tryptophan, and phenylalanine in gamma- and alpha-proteobacteria, and in some cases in low-GC Gram-positive bacteria, Thermotogales and Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi. This allowed us not only to describe the evolutionary dynamics of regulation by attenuation of transcription, but also to annotate a number of hypothetical genes. In particular, orthologs of ygeA of Escherichia coli were assigned the branched chain amino acid racemase function.
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