Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Bacteriology logoLink to Journal of Bacteriology
. 1987 Sep;169(9):4110–4118. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.9.4110-4118.1987

Expression of a cloned Bacillus thuringiensis crystal protein gene in Escherichia coli.

H E Schnepf, H C Wong, H R Whiteley
PMCID: PMC213716  PMID: 3040677

Abstract

The expression in Escherichia coli of a cloned crystal protein gene from Bacillus thuringiensis was investigated through the use of fusions of the crystal protein gene promoter to beta-galactosidase and catechol oxidase genes. Analysis of deletion and insertion derivatives of the crystal protein gene promoter showed that a region of B. thuringiensis DNA located between 87 and 258 base pairs upstream from the transcription initiation site caused reduced transcription from this promoter. Insertion of Tn5 145 base pairs upstream from the transcription initiation site resulted in overproduction of the crystal protein. S1 nuclease mapping experiments failed to detect transcription from an outwardly directed promoter in Tn5, indicating that the overproduction resulted from the disruption or repositioning of the transcription-suppressing region.

Full text

PDF
4113

Images in this article

4112Image
on p.4112
4115Image
on p.4115

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Auerswald E. A., Ludwig G., Schaller H. Structural analysis of Tn5. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1981;45(Pt 1):107–113. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1981.045.01.019. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Berg D. E., Weiss A., Crossland L. Polarity of Tn5 insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 1980 May;142(2):439–446. doi: 10.1128/jb.142.2.439-446.1980. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Birnboim H. C., Doly J. A rapid alkaline extraction procedure for screening recombinant plasmid DNA. Nucleic Acids Res. 1979 Nov 24;7(6):1513–1523. doi: 10.1093/nar/7.6.1513. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bradford M. M. A rapid and sensitive method for the quantitation of microgram quantities of protein utilizing the principle of protein-dye binding. Anal Biochem. 1976 May 7;72:248–254. doi: 10.1006/abio.1976.9999. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Casadaban M. J., Chou J., Cohen S. N. In vitro gene fusions that join an enzymatically active beta-galactosidase segment to amino-terminal fragments of exogenous proteins: Escherichia coli plasmid vectors for the detection and cloning of translational initiation signals. J Bacteriol. 1980 Aug;143(2):971–980. doi: 10.1128/jb.143.2.971-980.1980. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Corbin D., Barran L., Ditta G. Organization and expression of Rhizobium meliloti nitrogen fixation genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 May;80(10):3005–3009. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.10.3005. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Duvall E. J., Williams D. M., Mongkolsuk S., Lovett P. S. Regulatory regions that control expression of two chloramphenicol-inducible cat genes cloned in Bacillus subtilis. J Bacteriol. 1984 Jun;158(3):784–790. doi: 10.1128/jb.158.3.784-790.1984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Henikoff S. Unidirectional digestion with exonuclease III creates targeted breakpoints for DNA sequencing. Gene. 1984 Jun;28(3):351–359. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(84)90153-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Kalnins A., Otto K., Rüther U., Müller-Hill B. Sequence of the lacZ gene of Escherichia coli. EMBO J. 1983;2(4):593–597. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1983.tb01468.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Lupski J. R., Projan S. J., Ozaki L. S., Godson G. N. A temperature-dependent pBR322 copy number mutant resulting from a Tn5 position effect. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Oct;83(19):7381–7385. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.19.7381. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Mandel M., Higa A. Calcium-dependent bacteriophage DNA infection. J Mol Biol. 1970 Oct 14;53(1):159–162. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(70)90051-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Maxam A. M., Gilbert W. Sequencing end-labeled DNA with base-specific chemical cleavages. Methods Enzymol. 1980;65(1):499–560. doi: 10.1016/s0076-6879(80)65059-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Messing J., Vieira J. A new pair of M13 vectors for selecting either DNA strand of double-digest restriction fragments. Gene. 1982 Oct;19(3):269–276. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(82)90016-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Moser D. R., Campbell J. L. Characterization and complementation of pMB1 copy number mutant: effect of RNA I gene dosage on plasmid copy number and incompatibility. J Bacteriol. 1983 May;154(2):809–818. doi: 10.1128/jb.154.2.809-818.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Mulligan M. E., Hawley D. K., Entriken R., McClure W. R. Escherichia coli promoter sequences predict in vitro RNA polymerase selectivity. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Jan 11;12(1 Pt 2):789–800. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.1part2.789. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Mulligan M. E., McClure W. R. Analysis of the occurrence of promoter-sites in DNA. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 Jan 10;14(1):109–126. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.1.109. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Norrander J., Kempe T., Messing J. Construction of improved M13 vectors using oligodeoxynucleotide-directed mutagenesis. Gene. 1983 Dec;26(1):101–106. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(83)90040-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Ray C., Hay R. E., Carter H. L., Moran C. P., Jr Mutations that affect utilization of a promoter in stationary-phase Bacillus subtilis. J Bacteriol. 1985 Aug;163(2):610–614. doi: 10.1128/jb.163.2.610-614.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Reznikoff W. S., Siegele D. A., Cowing D. W., Gross C. A. The regulation of transcription initiation in bacteria. Annu Rev Genet. 1985;19:355–387. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ge.19.120185.002035. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Sanger F., Nicklen S., Coulson A. R. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Dec;74(12):5463–5467. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Schmidhauser T. J., Helinski D. R. Regions of broad-host-range plasmid RK2 involved in replication and stable maintenance in nine species of gram-negative bacteria. J Bacteriol. 1985 Oct;164(1):446–455. doi: 10.1128/jb.164.1.446-455.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Schnepf H. E., Whiteley H. R. Cloning and expression of the Bacillus thuringiensis crystal protein gene in Escherichia coli. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1981 May;78(5):2893–2897. doi: 10.1073/pnas.78.5.2893. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Schnepf H. E., Wong H. C., Whiteley H. R. The amino acid sequence of a crystal protein from Bacillus thuringiensis deduced from the DNA base sequence. J Biol Chem. 1985 May 25;260(10):6264–6272. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Thorne L., Garduno F., Thompson T., Decker D., Zounes M., Wild M., Walfield A. M., Pollock T. J. Structural similarity between the lepidoptera- and diptera-specific insecticidal endotoxin genes of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. "kurstaki" and "israelensis". J Bacteriol. 1986 Jun;166(3):801–811. doi: 10.1128/jb.166.3.801-811.1986. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Weisblum B., Graham M. Y., Gryczan T., Dubnau D. Plasmid copy number control: isolation and characterization of high-copy-number mutants of plasmid pE194. J Bacteriol. 1979 Jan;137(1):635–643. doi: 10.1128/jb.137.1.635-643.1979. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Weiss R. B. Molecular model of ribosome frameshifting. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1984 Sep;81(18):5797–5801. doi: 10.1073/pnas.81.18.5797. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Whiteley H. R., Schnepf H. E. The molecular biology of parasporal crystal body formation in Bacillus thuringiensis. Annu Rev Microbiol. 1986;40:549–576. doi: 10.1146/annurev.mi.40.100186.003001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Winans S. C., Walker G. C. Identification of pKM101-encoded loci specifying potentially lethal gene products. J Bacteriol. 1985 Jan;161(1):417–424. doi: 10.1128/jb.161.1.417-424.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Wong H. C., Schnepf H. E., Whiteley H. R. Transcriptional and translational start sites for the Bacillus thuringiensis crystal protein gene. J Biol Chem. 1983 Feb 10;258(3):1960–1967. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Zukowski M. M., Gaffney D. F., Speck D., Kauffmann M., Findeli A., Wisecup A., Lecocq J. P. Chromogenic identification of genetic regulatory signals in Bacillus subtilis based on expression of a cloned Pseudomonas gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Feb;80(4):1101–1105. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.4.1101. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Bacteriology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES