Cloning of the gene coding for Staphylococcus intermedius exfoliative toxin and its expression in Escherichia coli.

An exfoliative toxin (SIET)-producing strain (D-52) of Staphylococcus intermedius derived from canine pyoderma did not possess large plasmids. Therefore, the gene coding for SIET was considered to be located on the chromosomal DNA. The SIET gene was cloned from the chromosomal DNA of S. intermedius and was expressed in Escherichia coli. The nucleotide sequence of the SIET gene consists of a coding region of 990 bp specifying a polypeptide of 330 amino acid residues, which included a putative 42-residue signal sequence.