RESUMEN
The lep of Azotobacter vinelandii is an 852-base-pair open reading frame (ORF) which encodes a protein of 284 amino acid residues. The translated protein shares 75% homology with leader peptidase I isolated from Pseudomonas fluorescens and 37% homology with leader peptidase I isolated from Escherichia coli. Five highly conserved regions found in the family of leader peptidase I proteins are conserved in A. vinelandii Lep. The putative membrane topology of the protein seems similar to that of E. coli leader peptidase I based on the hydrophobicity analysis of the predicted amino acid sequence. Southern blotting analysis of the A. vinelandii chromosome by probing with lep specific DNA revealed that lep is present as a single copy per the chromosome. A multicopy plasmid carrying A. vinelandii lep could complement a temperature sensitive lep mutant of E. coli strain IT41, suggesting that we have identified the functional copy of lep present on A. vinelandii genome.