Abstract
Syntheses of the B. stearothermophilus xylanolytic enzymes such as xylanases, ${\beta}$-xylosidases, ${\alpha}$-arabinofurano-sidases, and esterases, were observed to be regulated by the carbon source present in the culture media. Xylan induced synthesis of ${\beta}$-xylosidase at the highest level while xylose gave about 30% of the ${\beta}$-xylosidase activity induced by xylan. The lowest syntheses of the xylanolytic enzymes above mentioned were detected in the basal medium containing glucose as a sole carbon source. When a mixture of xylan and glucose was used as a carbon source, we could observe glucose repression of xylanase (about 70-fold) and ${\beta}$-xylosidase (about 40-fold) syntheses. Whereas, the level of the glucose repression of the expression of the xylA gene encoding the major ${\beta}$-xylosidase of B. stearothermophilus was assessed to be about l0-fold when the relative amounts of the xylA transcript were determined. From the sequence of the xylA gene, we could find two CRE-like sequences (CRE-l: nucleotides ＋124 to ＋136 and CRE-2:＋247 to ＋259) within the reading frame of the xylA gene, either or both of which were suspected to be involved in catabolite repression of the xylA gene.