Chitinases were produced by a lot of microorganisms. Chitinase gene expression in most of the chitinase producing bacteria was inducible by chitin. Low levels of chitinase were observed in the presence of glucose. To date, however, the regulation of such chitinase gene in Bacillus thuringiensis had not been well studied. In this paper, all 77 Bacillus thuringiensis strains were grown in the medium with or without chitin. We measured quantitatively the chitinase activity of the cultures. Moreover, we investigated the suppressive effect of glucose on chitinase of 4 strains. Also we studied the relationship between chitin induction and glucose suppression on chitinase. This investigation demonstrated that all tested B. thuringiensis strains could produce chitinase without chitin. After induction, the chitinolytic activity of 31 tested strains had no obvious response to the inducer, whereas 44 stains increased in different degree. Among these strains, most of them did not markedly increase the levels of chitinase, and many stains simultaneously displayed the expression mode of inducible and constitutive. The glucose inhibited the inductive effect of chitin, but it could not inhibit the basal expression of chitinase. Two strains No. 38 and No. 75 belonged to different expression types. But we just found several different bases in the regulatory region of chitinase genes chiA and chiB from them.
Bacillus thuringiensis ; enzymology ; growth & development ; Base Sequence ; Chitin ; pharmacology ; Chitinases ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Culture Media ; chemistry ; Culture Techniques ; Glucose ; pharmacology ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Polymorphism, Genetic