RegX3-Mediated Regulation of Methylcitrate Cycle in .

is a global human pathogen that infects macrophages and can establish a latent infection. Emerging evidence has established the nutrients metabolism as a key point to study the pathogenesis of and host immunity. It was reported that fatty acids and cholesterol are the major nutrient sources of in the period of infection. However, the mechanism by which utilizes lipids for maintaining life activities in nutrient-deficiency macrophages is poorly understood. is fast-growing and generally used to study its pathogenic counterpart, . In this work, we found that the phosphate sensing regulator RegX3 of is required for its growing on propionate and surviving in macrophages. We further demonstrated that the expression of and related genes () in methylcitrate cycle could be enhanced by RegX3 in response to the phosphate-starvation condition. The binding sites of the promoter region of for RegX3 and PrpR were investigated. In addition, cell morphology assay showed that RegX3 is responsible for cell morphological elongation, thus promoting the proliferation and survival of in macrophages. Taken together, our findings revealed a novel transcriptional regulation mechanism of RegX3 on propionate metabolism, and uncovered that the nutrients-sensing regulatory system puts bacteria at metabolic steady state by altering cell morphology. More importantly, since we observed that RegX3 also binds to the operon , the RegX3-mediated regulation might be general in and other mycobacteria for nutrient sensing and environmental adaptation.