Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 gene CA_C0359 encodes a putative unsaturated rhamnogalacturonyl hydrolase (URH) with distant amino-acid sequence homology to YteR of Bacillus subtilis strain 168. YteR, like other URHs, has core structural homology to unsaturated glucuronyl hydrolases, but hydrolyzes the unsaturated disaccharide derivative of rhamnogalacturonan I. The crystal structure of the...

Hybrid plasmid DNA cloned in Escherichia coli undergoes deletions when returned to competent Bacillus subtilis, even in defined restriction and modification mutants of strain 168. We have isolated a mutant of B. subtilis MI112 which is stably transformed at high frequency by chimeric plasmid DNA propagated in E. coli.

A derivative of Bacillus subtilis strain 168 sensitive to defective bacteriophages PBSX and PBSZ has been isolated. This particular strain, RUB824, carries the genetic information for defective bacteriophage PBSX.

Bacillus subtilis IAM1247 had two modification and restriction systems (Bsu1247I and Bsu1247II), the former producing an isoschizomer of PstI endonuclease. A transformant clone was isolated which had Bsu 168, BsuR, and Bsu1247I systems coexisting within a genome.

The attachment site for the prophage of SPbeta lies between ilvA and kauA on the chromosome of Bacillus subtilis strain 168. Specialized transduction of citK and kauA can be carried out by certain lysates of SPbeta.

We describe a method for obtaining synchronously dividing cells of bacteria (Escherichia coli B and K-12 and Bacillus subtilis 168) and fission yeasts (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) by the use of Percoll density gradients.

Competence is a physiological state that enables Bacillus subtilis 168 to take up and internalize extracellular DNA. In practice, only a small subpopulation of B. subtilis 168 cells becomes competent when they enter stationary phase. In this study, we developed a new transformation method to improve the transformation efficiency of B. subtilis 168, specially in rich media. At first, different c...

A genetic marker responsible for the killing activity of PBSX, a defective phage carried by Bacillus subtilis 168, has been located on the bacterial chromosome. Two mutant strains of B. subtilis 168, which produced tailless phage particles upon mitomycin C induction, were shown to carry lesions, designated xtl-1 and xtl-2, which were linked by transformation and PBS1-mediated transduction to me...

Although bacterial polyketides are of considerable biomedical interest, the molecular biology of polyketide biosynthesis in Bacillus spp., one of the richest bacterial sources of bioactive natural products, remains largely unexplored. Here we assign for the first time complete polyketide synthase (PKS) gene clusters to Bacillus antibiotics. Three giant modular PKS systems of the trans-acyltrans...