Abstract

In Escherichia coli, the biosynthesis of the electron carrier menaquinone (vitamin K2) involves at least seven identified enzymes. One of these, naphthoate synthase, forms the bicyclic ring system by catalyzing the conversion of o-succinylbenzoyl-coenzyme A to 1,4-dihydroxy-2-naphthoic acid. The gene for this enzyme has been previously identified as menB. By genetic and biochemical tests, a 1.349-kb DNA fragment from the E. coli men locus complements menB mutants. This fragment contains a single 285-codon open reading frame (ORF). Recombinant plasmids containing deletions of either the amino or the carboxy region of the ORF fail to complement the mutants. The ORF is preceded by consensus sequences for a ribosomal binding site and a sigma 70 promoter. menB transcription sufficient to complement the menB mutant in vivo and in vitro can be initiated from the identified putative promoter, and that in the constructs, menB expression, can be made independent of read-through transcription from the lac promoter. However, multicopy plasmids containing menB fail to generate the expected levels of enzymatic activity.