ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF IS31831, A TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENT FROM CORYNEBACTERIUM-GLUTAMICUM

A transposable element from a coryneform bacterium, Corynebacterium gl utamicum ATCC 31831 was isolated and characterized. The element IS3183 1 is a 1453 bp insertion sequence with 24 bp imperfect terminal invert ed repeats. It contains one open reading frame highly homologous at th e amino acid level to the transposase of IS1096 from Mycobacterium sme gmatis. Both IS31831 and IS1096 exhibit several common characteristics suggesting that they constitute a new family of insertion sequences. IS31831 was isolated by taking advantage of the sucrose sensitivity of coryneform bacteria conferred by expression of the Bacillus subtilis sacB gene. An Escherichia coli/Corynebacterium shuttle vector useful f or the isolation of transposable elements from the coryneform group of bacteria was constructed.