H. Mejiaruiz et al., THE AZOTOBACTER-VINELANDII ALG8 AND ALG44 GENES ARE ESSENTIAL FOR ALGINATE SYNTHESIS AND CAN BE TRANSCRIBED FROM AN ALGD-INDEPENDENT PROMOTER, Gene, 199(1-2), 1997, pp. 271-277
A 2.8-kb DNA region, located immediately downstream of algD, contains
the A. vinelandii alg8 and alg44 genes, whose sequences are highly hom
ologous to those of the corresponding Pseudomonas aeruginosa genes. Th
ese genes occur on a transcript that does not include algD, and are tr
anscribed from a promoter different from that transcribing algD; this
is the fourth promoter described within the alginate biosynthetic gene
cluster. alg8 and alg44 mutants were constructed and shown to be comp
letely impaired in alginate production. Alg8 shares 28.20% identity an
d 38.09% similarity to Azorhizobium caulinodans NodC, a glycosyl trans
ferase catalyzing the formation of beta-1,4 linkages. A topological mo
del is predicted, which supports the idea of Alg8 being the polymerase
responsible for alginate synthesis. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.