Bacillus stearothermophilus contains a plasmid-borne gene for alpha-amylase

The gene for thermostable alpha-amylase from the thermophilic bacterium Bacillus stearothermophilus has been cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. Each alpha-amylase-producing colony contained at least a 9.7-kilobase-pair (kb) chimeric plasmid composed of the vector pBR322 and a common 5.4-kb HindIII fragment of DNA. B. stearothermophilus contains four plasmids with sizes from 12 kb to over 108 kb. Restriction endonuclease analysis of these naturally occurring plasmids showed they also contain a 5.4-kb HindIII fragment of DNA. Cloning experiments with the four plasmids yielded alpha-amylase-producing E. coli that contained the same 9.7-kb chimeric plasmid. Restriction endonuclease analysis and further recombinant DNA experiments identified a 26-kb plasmid that contains the gene for alpha-amylase. A spontaneous mutant of B. stearothermophilus unable to produce alpha-amylase was missing the 26-kb plasmid but contained a 20-kb plasmid. A 6-kb deletion within the region of the 5.4-kb HindIII fragment yielded the 20-kb plasmid unable to code for alpha-amylase. A nick-translated probe for the alpha-amylase coding region did not hybridize to either plasmid or total cellular DNA from this mutant strain of B. stearothermophilus. These results demonstrate the gene for alpha-amylase is located exclusively on a 26-kb plasmid in B. stearothermophilus with no genetic counterpart present on the chromosome.