title: Analysis of the chiB gene of Serratia liquefaciens.
abstract: A 4.6-kb EcoRI/BglII fragment of Serratia liquefaciens genomic DNA has been sequenced and within this fragment the chiB gene has been identified and characterized. The chiB ORF encodes a polypeptide with a deduced molecular mass of 52-kDa and the translational product in vitro has chitinase, but not chitobiase activity. Alignment of the predicted Chib 499 amino acid sequence indicated a chitin-binding and a catalytic domain that shares homology to the chitinase family 18 domain, to the Chib polypeptide of Serratia marcescens QMB1466 (93.6%), a human chitinase and several bacterial chitinases. This chiB gene sequence transcription/translation in Escherichia coli may be blocked by a RNA folding mechanism thus controlling the chitin utilization regulon in S. liquefaciens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Microbiology and Food Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. woytowich@sask.usask.ca
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Woytowich
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Selvaraj
authors.forename: G G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Khachatourians
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D002688:Chitinases / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012705:Serratia / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D010940:Plant Proteins; D002688:Chitinases; C094255:PLC-B protein, Phytolacca americana