Identification of a novel steroid inducible gene associated with the beta hsd locus of Comamonas testosteroni

PRUNEDA-PAZ JL; LINARES MAURICIO; CABRERA JULIO E; GENTI-RAIMONDI SUSANA

JOURNAL OF STEROID BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Pergamon Press

Lugar: England; Año: 2004 vol. 88 p. 91 - 91

0960-0760

p class="abstract">Comamonas testosteroni is a soil bacterium, which can use a variety of steroids as carbon and energy source. Even if it can be estimated that the complete degradation of the steroid nucleus requires more than 20 enzymatic reactions, the complete molecular characterization of the genes encoding these steroid degradative enzymes as well as the genetic organization of them remain to be elucidated. We have previously reported the cloning and nucleotide sequence of two steroid-inducible genes, beta hsd and stdC encoding 3 beta-17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase and a hypothetical protein respectively, located in both ends of a 3.2kb HindIII fragment. Herein, we report the cloning and characterization of another steroid-inducible gene, called sip48 (steroid inducible protein), located between these two genes. The analysis of Sip48 amino acid sequence predicts a protein of 438 amino acids with a molecular mass of 48.5 kDa. This protein bears high homology with conserved