Use of the Escherichia coli lac repressor and operator to control gene expression in Bacillus subtilis.

Abstract

The E. coli lac operator was placed on the 3'' side of the promoter for the penicillinase gene of B. licheniformis, creating a hybrid promoter controllable by the E. coli lac repressor. The E. coli lac repressor gene has been placed under the control of a promoter and ribosome-binding site that allows expression in B. subtilis. When the penicillinase gene that contains the lac operator is expressed in B. subtilis on a plasmid that also produces the lac repressor, the expression of the penicillinase gene can be modified by isopropyl .beta.-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG), an inducer of the lac operon in E. coli. A similar system was constructed from a promoter of the B. subtilis phage SPO-1 and the leukocyte interferon A gene, which allowed the controlled expression of interferon in B. subtilis. These 2 examples show that a functional control system can be introduced into B. subtilis from E. coli.