Chloroplast promoter driven expression of the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene in a cyanobacterium.

The putative promoter region of the chloroplast encoded ps2B gene (the gene encoding the 32kD herbicide binding B protein of photosystem II (1-4)) has been fused to a chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene that lacks its bacterial promoter and found to accurately initiate transcription from this promoter when introduced into the cyanobacterium, Anacystis nidulans R2 (or into E. coli). The chloroplast promoter-CAT fusion was introduced into the cells on a plasmid that contains plasmid replication origins for E. coli and Anacystis as well as a second antibiotic resistance marker. Cells transformed with corresponding vectors lacking the promoter region do not express CAT.