The nucleotide sequences of rbsD, rbsA, and rbsC have been determined. These genes encode components of the high affinity ribose transport system in Escherichia coli, and together with the sequences of rbsB (Groarke, J.M., Mahoney, W.C., Hope, J.N., Furlong, C.E., Robb, F.T., Zalkin, H., and Hermodson, M.A. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 12952-12956) and rbsK (Hope, J.N., Bell, A.W., Hermodson, M.A., and Groarke, J.M. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 7663-7668), they complete the nucleotide sequence of the first five genes of the rbs operon. Nuclease S1 mapping places the transcriptional start site for the operon 29 base pairs upstream from the most likely translational start site for rbsD. The open reading frames of rbsD, rbsA, and rbsC encode proteins of 139, 501, and 321 amino acid residues, respectively. The character of the proteins varies widely, from very hydrophilic for the rbsA product to exceedingly hydrophobic for the rbsC product. The intercistronic spaces between the three genes are very short, with the stop codons of the upstream genes overlapping the ribosome-binding sites of the downstream genes. This may imply translational control of expression of these genes, the products of which presumably form a membrane-bound transport complex.