When
Escherichia coli XL1-Blue MRA (P2) was infected with λ DNA containing
Prevotella ruminicola B
14 chromosomal DNA, only a few plaques produced β-1,4-endoglucanase activity, and all of these had mannanase activity. Positive
phage contained a 17-kb
SacI DNA fragment that gave six bands after
EcoRI digestion. The
EcoRI fragments were ligated into pBluescript and sequenced. The order of the fragments was verified by PCR and by restriction
mapping. The DNA sequence contained 6 open reading frames (ORFs). The 4th and 5th ORFs encoded two related β-1,4-endoglucanases.
E. coli clones carrying ORF5 and ORF6 had β-1,4-endoglucanase and mannanase activities, while a clone carrying only ORF6 hydrolyzed
mannan but not carboxymethylcellulose. The 6th ORF had three regions of homology to mannanase A from
Pseudomonas fluorescens. Based on these results, ORF6 encoded the mannanase gene. The 3rd ORF had 10 regions of homology with cellulose-binding protein
A from
Clostridium cellulovorans. The 1st and 2nd ORFs had no significant homology to genes or amino acid sequences in GeneBank or SwissProt. All of the ORFs
except 1 encoded a potential signal peptide sequence. The upstream region of ORF1 contained four direct repeats and four inverted
repeat elements, but no apparent σ
70 sequence-like promoter was present. The segment of DNA containing the 6 ORFs was preceded and followed by potential transcription
termination signals suggesting a single transcriptional unit.
Received: 16 April 1997 / Accepted: 9 May 1997