A molecular analysis of the 53.3 minute region of the Escherichia coli linkage map.

The coding characteristics of four plasmids expressing a protein (BCP) which comigrates with bacterioferritin were examined and the nucleotide sequence of a common 1985 bp segment from the 53 min region of the Escherichia coli linkage map was determined. Three open reading-frames (orf1, orf2 and orf3) were detected, and orf2 (bcp, 156 amino acid codons) appeared to encode the bacterioferritin comigratory protein, BCP. The translation product of orf3 (205 amino acid codons) resembled the iron-sulphur protein component (DMS B subunit) of the anaerobic dimethylsulphoxide reductase complex of E. coli.