The nucleotide sequence of the B gene of bacteriophage Mu.

Bacteriophage Mu is a highly efficient transposon which requires the products of the Mu A and B genes in order to transpose at a normal frequency. We have determined the nucleotide sequence of the B gene as well as that of the A-B intergenic region upstream of B. The protein product of the gene contains 312 amino acids and has a predicted molecular weight of 35,061. As expected, there do not appear to be any potential promoter sequences in the intergenic region prior to the gene, but it is preceded by a strong Shine-Dalgarno sequence. The intergenic region does not contain any obvious transcription termination sequences. The frequency of optimal codon usage is similar to that for other transposon and phage genes, and the amino acid composition is comparable to that of an "average" E. coli protein. A region near the amino terminus of the protein resembles the highly conserved bihelical fold which is involved in DNA contact and sequence specific recognition in a number of DNA binding proteins.