Analysis of the Escherichia coli K-12 cysB gene and its product using the method of gene fusion.

The amino-terminal structure and the essential functional region of the cysB gene product of Escherichia coli K-12 were analyzed by the method of gene fusion. The translational start codon of the cysB gene was located by determining the amino-terminal sequence of a hybrid protein containing the first 31 amino acid residues of the CysB protein at the amino terminus of beta-galactosidase(LacZ protein). The fact that two other CysB'-'LacZ hybrid polypeptides expressed a normal CysB activity indicated that the functional region of the CysB protein was located within the first 215 amino acid residues of the total 324 amino acids deduced from the nucleotide sequence.