Reddish Escherichia coli Cells Caused by Overproduction of Bacillus stearothermophilus Uroporphyrinogen III Methylase

During shotgun cloning of an amylase gene, we found a transformant of Escherichia coli with a reddish color. The transformant produced highly water-soluble red pigments the molecular masses of which were less than 3000. The plasmid harbored by the transformant contained a DNA fragment derived from a...

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Published inBioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry Vol. 59; no. 10; p. 1817
Main Authors Chou, Pei-Lin, Ohtsuka, Mari, Minowa, Takashi, Yamasat, Kazuhide, Sakano, Yoshiyuki, Matsuzawa, Hiroshi, Ohta, Takahisa, Sakai, Hiroshi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tokyo Oxford University Press 01.10.1995
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Summary:During shotgun cloning of an amylase gene, we found a transformant of Escherichia coli with a reddish color. The transformant produced highly water-soluble red pigments the molecular masses of which were less than 3000. The plasmid harbored by the transformant contained a DNA fragment derived from a strain of Bacillus stearothermophilus. Truncation of the insert DNA showed that an 1. 1-kbp Sau 3A-SalI fragment was responsible for the reddish colony. An open reading frame was found in the nucleotide sequence of the 1. 1-kbp DNA fragment. The production of the red pigment was accompanied by a colorless 28-kDa protein. The sequence of the 28-kDa protein was highly homologous to bacterial uroporphyrinogen III methylases participating in corrinoid biosynthesis. The 28-kDa protein was found to be a thermostable uroporphyrinogen III methylase.
ISSN:0916-8451
1347-6947