Fig. 1

Sequence of the intergenic region between comZ and pilA4 and plasmid construction. A The − 35 and − 10 regions of the predicted P_pilA4-promoter, start of the transcript (+ 1) and the potential ribosome binding site (RBS) are indicated above the sequences. Arrows denote the transcriptional orientation of comZ and pilA4. B The plasmid pMKE2, which encodes for a kanamycin resistance gene (Kan^R), was digested using XbaI and NotI to eliminate the P_nar-fragment. The promoterless bglT gene amplified by PCR using genomic DNA of T. thermophilus HB27 was introduced into the XbaI and NotI restriction sites. The stop codon was omitted to generate a transcriptional fusion with the hexahistidin tag encoded by pMKE2 (HisTag). The two P_pilA4 DNA fragments amplified from T. thermophilus genomic DNA by PCR were introduced via EcoRI and HindIII restriction sites