An in vitro coupled transcription-translation system from Staphylococcus aureus.

We have developed a Staphylococcus aureus cell-free system that is capable of directing DNA-dependent synthesis of proteins. The staphylococcal plasmids pE194 and pSK265 were used to characterize this system. The in vitro system was found to direct the synthesis of the appropriate proteins predicted from the nucleotide sequence of the plasmids. As is the case in vivo, low levels of the inducer, erythromycin, promoted the synthesis of the pE194-encoded ribosomal RNA methyltransferase in the in vitro system.