Nucleotide sequence of the Bacillus subtilis developmental gene spoVE

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of a 1159 bp DNA fragment containing the spoVE locus of Bacillus subtilis. The locus contained a single open reading frame of 293 codons. On the basis of the predicted amino acid sequence, the product of the spoVE gene is believed to be a protein with an Mr of 31,539. The amino-terminal portion of the spoVE gene was used to construct a translational fusion with the lacZ' gene. The hybrid spoVE-lacZ' gene was shown to be expressed in Escherichia coli and, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that the proposed open reading frame for the spoVE gene does indeed function in vivo.