Molecular Cloning and Nucleotide Sequence of the Porphobilinogen Deaminase Gene,hemC, from Chlorobium vibrioforme

We previously reported the DNA sequence and expression of the Chlorobium vibrioforme glutamyl-tRNA reductase (hemA) gene (Majumdar et al., Arch Microbiol 156:281, 1991). The sequence downstream of the hemA gene indicated homology to Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis porphobilinogen deaminase (hemC) gene. The Chlorobium gene was confirmed to be the porphobilinogen deaminase gene, and complete sequence of the structural gene was obtained. A 2.8-kb DNA fragment containing the 1.3-kb hemA gene of Chlorobium was cloned into a hemC auxotroph (Sz16) of Bacillus subtilis, and complementation of the auxotroph to prototrophy was achieved. DNA sequence data showed a single open reading frame of 840 bp coding a protein of 279 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence of the Chlorobium porphobilinogen deaminase revealed 39% to 46% homology with the corresponding prokaryotic and eukaryotic sequences. Received: 20 September 1996 / Accepted: 26 October 1996