Sequence of the exfoliative toxin B gene of Staphylococcus aureus

We sequenced the Staphylococcus aureus exfoliative toxin B gene contained on a 1.7-kilobase HindIII fragment of plasmid pRW001. The gene was located by comparison of the amino acid sequences of open reading frames with the amino-terminal sequence of exfoliative toxin B and the total amino acid composition of the protein (A.D. Johnson, L. Spero, J.S. Cades, and B.T. De Cicco, Infect. Immun. 24:679-684, 1979). The primary translation product consists of 274 amino acids and contains a 31-amino-acid N-terminal peptide presumably necessary for transport.