Isolation of a developmental gene of Bacillus subtilis and its expression in Escherichia coli.

Glucose dehydrogenase of Bacillus subtilis is a developmental enzyme that is not found in growing (vegetative) cells but is synthesized after the differentiation process that leads to the production of endospores has started. We have isolated the gene coding for this enzyme from a lambda Charon 4A phage library of B. subtilis DNA. It is transcribed and translated in vegetative cells of the nondifferentiating organism Escherichia coli into enzymatically active glucose dehydrogenase that has the same physicochemical properties as the enzyme produced in B. subtilis during sporulation. Subcloning of the lambda DNA insert into pBR322 plasmid derivatives showed that the glucose dehydrogenase gene was transcribed in E. coli from a promoter within the B. subtilis genome.