Abstract
This study investigated the use of promoters belonging to the phaAB and phaEC operons of the polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biosynthetic pathway to drive foreign expression of the luxAB operon, which encodes the reporter enzyme luciferase from Vibrio harveyi. Luciferase expression was successfully achieved under conditions previously reported for PHB production. Expression is controlled by circadian rhythm under growth conditions in BG-11. Under phosphate-limiting conditions luciferase exhibited a three-fold increase in expression levels and was constitutively expressed with circadian rhythm abolished. The PHB promoters for the phaAB and phaEC operons present a potentially useful set of promoters for introducing new metabolic pathways under the control of a circadian rhythm or phosphate availability.