Identification of the promoters of the Bacillus subtilis spoIIA and spoVA operons.

Nuclease S1 mapping was used to identify the transcription start points of the spoIIA and spoVA operons of Bacillus subtilis. The spoIIA operon has been shown to be transcribed from two promoters separated by about 850 bp of DNA. The downstream of the two promoters has -10 and -35 regions characteristic of promoters recognised by the sigma-B form of RNA polymerase and it gives rise to a transcript with a 45-base 5' untranslated leader sequence. Studies on the upstream spoIIA promoter are still in progress and preliminary results indicate the presence of an open reading frame between the two promoters. In the case of the spoVA operon the promoter shows homology to promoters recognised by the sigma-E form of RNA polymerase; the 5' untranslated sequence on the spoVA mRNA is 14 bases.