Molecular cloning, overexpression and mapping of the slt gene encoding the soluble lytic transglycosylase of Escherichia coli.

The gene of the major autolysin of Escherichia coli, the soluble lytic transglycosylase (Slt), was isolated from an expression gene library. The cloned slt gene was used to determine its chromosomal map position adjacent to trp R at 99.7 min on the E. coli linkage map.