Nucleotide sequence of the cryptic plasmid pTT8 from Thermus thermophilus HB8 and isolation and characterization of its high-copy-number mutant.

The complete nucleotide sequence of pTT8, a cryptic plasmid from Thermus thermophilus HB8, was determined. pTT8 was 9328bp long and its G+C content was 69%. pTT8 contained eight putative open reading frames, three of which showed extensive similarities to the plasmid addiction proteins PasA and PasB of pTC-F14 and pAM10.6, and the RepA protein of the ColE2-related plasmids, respectively. During the analysis of pTT8-based plasmid pPP442, which had been obtained during a promoter-screening experiment, we occasionally isolated a plasmid with a relatively high-copy-number. This plasmid, pPP442m, contained a 1025 bp fragment derived from the genome of the HB27 host strain immediately upstream of the putative repA gene. Using the ori region of pPP442m, we constructed an expression vector, pTEV131m, with an estimated high-copy-number of 30-40. This plasmid was stably maintained in T. thermophilus HB27 under nonselective conditions for at least 100 generations. Cloning of the alpha-amylase gene of Bacillus stearothermophilus DY-5 into pTEV131m gave more than twofold production of the enzyme compared with pTEV131, the parental plasmid. Copyright 2004 Elsevier Inc.