Cloning and DNA sequence of the 5'‐exonuclease gene of bacteriophage T5

Abstract
The nucleotide sequence of the BalI‐PstI fragment of T5 DNA, 1347 bp in length, coding for 5'‐exonuclease (D15 gene), has been determined. A coding region of the gene contains 873 bp and is preceded by a typical Shine‐Dalgarno sequence. The D15 gene belongs to a cluster, consisting of at least 3 genes, in which a termination codon of a preceding gene overlaps an initiation codon of the following one. The sequence contains an open reading frame for 291 amino acid residues. The molecular mass of the 5'‐exonuclease calculated from the predicted amino acid sequence is 33400 Da.