• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.544-549
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• 1995

The alkaline elastase is an extracellular serine protease of the alkalophilic Bacillus strain Ya-B. To increase the gene copy number and the production level of the alkaline elastase Ya-B, we designed, on the B. subtilis chromosome, a gene amplification of the 10.6 kb repeating unit containing amyE, aleE (alkaline elastase Ya-B gene) and tmrB. The aleE was inserted between amyE and tmrB, and B. subtilis APT119 strain was transformed with this amyE-aleE-tmrB-junction region fragment. As a result, we succeeded in obtaining tunicamycin-resistant (Tm$^{r}$) transformants (Tf-1, Tf-2) in which the designed gene amplification of 10.6 kb occurred in chromosome. The transformants showed high productivity of $\alpha $-amylase and alkaline elastase Ya-B. The copy number of the repeating unit (amyE-aleE-tmrB) was estimated to be 25, but plasmid vector (pUC19) was not integrated. The amplified aleE of chromosome was more stable than that of plasmid in absence of antibiotics.