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Bifunctional recombinant plasmids were constructed, comprised of the E. coli vectors pBR322, pBR325 and pACYC184 and different plasmids from Gram-positive bacteria, e.g. pBSU161-1 of B. subtilis and pUB110 and pC221 of S. aureus. The beta-lactamase (bla) gene and the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (cat) gene from the E. coli plasmids were not transcribed and therefore not expressed in B. subtilis. However, tetracycline resistance from the E. coli plasmids was expressed in B. subtilis. Transcription of the tetracycline resistance gene(s) started in B. subtilis at or near the original E. coli promoter, the sequence of which is almost identical with the sequence recognized by σ<sup>55</sup> of B. subtilis RNA polymerase.
From a cosmid gene bank of Bacillus cereus GP4 in Escherichia coli we isolated clones which, after several days of incubation, formed hemolysis zones on erythrocyte agar plates. These clones contained recombinant cosmids with B. cereus DNA insertions of varying lengths which shared some common restriction fragments. The smallest insertionwas recloned as aPstl fragment into pJKK3-1, a shuttle vector which repücates in Bacillus subtilis and E. coli. When this recombinant plasmid (pJKK3-1 hly-1) was transformed into E. coli, it caused hemolysis on erythrocyte agar plates, but in liquid assays no extemal or intemal hemolytic activity could be detected with the E. coli transformants. B. subtilis carrying the same plasmid exhibited hemolytic activity at Ievels comparable to those ofthe B. cereus donor strain. The hemolysin produced in B. subtilis seemed to be indistinguishable from cereolysin in its sensitivity to cholesterol, activation by dithiothreitol, and inactivation by antibodies raised against cereolysin. When the recombinant DNA carrying the cereolysin gene was used as a probe in hybridization experiments with chromosomal DNA from a streptolysin 0-producing strain of Streptococcus pyogenes or from üsteriolysin-producing strains of Usteria monoeytogenes, no positive hybridization signals were obtained. These data soggest that the genes for these three SH-activated cytolysins do not have extended sequence homology.
A cloned cytolytic determinant from the genome of Bacillus cereus GP-4 has been characterized at the molecular Ievel. Nucleotide sequence determination revealed the presence of two open reading frames. 8oth open reading frames were found by deletion and complementation analysis to be necessary for expression of the hemolytic phenotype by Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli hosts. The 5' open reading frame was found to be nearly identical to a recently reported phospholipase C gene derived from a mutant B. cereus strain which overexpresses the respective protein, and it conferred a lecithinase-positive phenotype to the B. subtilis host. The 3' open reading frame encoded a sphingomyelinase. The two tandemly encoded activities, phospholipase C and sphingomyelinase, constitute a biologically functional cytolytic determinant of B. cereus termed cereolysin AB.
During an investigation into the substrate specificity and processing of subtilisin Carlsberg from Bacillus licheniformis, two major independent findings were made: (i) as has been shown previously, a stretch of five amino acids (residues 97-101 of the mature enzyme) that loops out into the binding cleft is involved in substrate binding by subtilisin Carlsberg. In order to see whether this loop element also determines substrate specificity, the coding region for these five amino acids was deleted from the cloned gene for subtilisin Carlsberg by site-directed mutagenesis. Unexpectedly the resulting mutant preproenzyme (P42c, M<sub>r</sub>=42 kDa) was not processed to the mature form (M<sub>r</sub> = 30 kDa) and was not released into the medium by a proteasedeficient B. subtilis host strain; rather, it accumulated in the cell membrane. This result demonstrates that the integrity of this loop element, which is very distant from the processing cleavage sites in the preproenzyme, is required for secretion of subtilisin Carlsberg. (ii) In culture supernatants from B. subtilis harbouring the cloned wild-type subtilisin Carlsberg gene the transient appearance (at 0-3 h after onset of stationary phase) of a processing intermediate (P38c, M<sub>r</sub> = 38 kDa) oftbis protease could be demonstrated. P38c very probably represents a genuine proform of subtilisin Carlsberg.