alternative bacterial expression system using bacillus pumilus SG2 chitinase promoter

ABSTRACT

Background: Chitin is an abundant natural polysaccharide found in fungi, algae, and exoskeleton of insects. Several bacterial species are capable of utilizing chitin as their carbon source. These bacteria produce chitinases for degradation of chitin into N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. So far, regulation of the chitinase encoding genes has been studied in different bacterial species. Among Bacillus species, B. pumilus strain SG2 encodes two chitinases, ChiS and ChiL. The promoter region of chiSL genes [PchiS] is mainly regulated by the general carbon catabolite repression [CCR] system in B. subtilis due to the presence of a catabolite responsive element [cre]