The extracellular nuclease gene of Serratia marcescens and its secretion from Escherichia coli. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We are studying exoproteins of the enteric bacterium Serratia marcescens as a model system for the release of extracellular proteins from the cell. In this work we report the cloning of the gene for a secreted nuclease from S. marcescens and its complete nucleotide sequence. Following expression of the nuclease gene in both S. marcescens and Escherichia coli we were able to demonstrate the presence of the nuclease extracellularly in both organisms. Cell lysis did not occur and there was no concurrent release of cytoplasmic or periplasmic proteins. No accessory genes appeared to be required for extracellular secretion of the nuclease from E. coli. We can conclude that E. coli is capable of secreting certain proteins extracellularly, and may be a suitable host organism for the genetic analysis of extracellular protein secretion when provided with a suitable protein to export.

published proceedings

  • Gene

altmetric score

  • 6

author list (cited authors)

  • Ball, T. K., Saurugger, P. N., & Benedik, M. J.

citation count

  • 92

complete list of authors

  • Ball, TK||Saurugger, PN||Benedik, MJ

publication date

  • January 1987

published in