Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 31831 grew on L-arabinose as the sole carbon source at a specific growth rate that was twice that on D-glucose. The gene cluster responsible for L-arabinose utilization comprised a six-cistron transcriptional unit with a total length of 7.8 kb. Three L-arabinose-catabolizing genes, araA (encoding L-arabinose isomerase), araB (L-ribulokinase), and araD (L-ribulose-5-phosphate 4-epimerase), comprised the araBDA operon, upstream of which three other genes, araR (LacI-type transcriptional regulator), araE (L-arabinose transporter), and galM (putative aldose 1-epimerase), were present in the opposite direction. Inactivation of the araA, araB, or araD gene eliminated growth on L-arabinose, and each of the gene products was functionally homologous to its Escherichia coli counterpart. Moreover, compared to the wild-type strain, an araE disruptant exhibited a >80% decrease in the growth rate at a lower concentration of Larabinose (3.6 g liter Corynebacterium glutamicum is a gram-positive soil microorganism able to secrete large amounts of glutamic acid under suitable conditions (32, 57). Consequently, this organism been used for a long time for industrial production of amino acids and nucleotides, among other primary metabolites (17). Moreover, its potential as a commodity chemical producer is the focus of increasing research efforts (21, 39). Commonly, C. glutamicum is able to grow on various carbon sources, such as hexoses, sugar alcohols, and organic acids (9,29,30). In a future where pentose sugar-rich lignocellulosics should play an important role in global renewable energy, growth of C. glutamicum on pentose sugar-based media is vital to its continued relevance as a producer of commodity chemicals. This has not been possible owing to the lack of essential pentose sugar assimilation pathways in C. glutamicum (4). This contrasts with the characteristics of two major industrial workhorse bacteria, the gram-negative organism Escherichia coli and the grampositive organism Bacillus subtilis, which can grow on L-arabinose as the sole carbon source using the same metabolic pathway. L-Arabinose uptake by E. coli and B. subtilis occurs via two distinct systems involving both a low-affinity H ϩ symporter (encoded by araE) and a high-affinity ATP-dependent transport system (araFGH) (5,18,45). After entering the cell, L-arabinose is sequentially converted to L-ribulose, L-ribulose 5-phosphate, and D-xylulose 5-phosphate by the action of Larabinose isomerase (encoded by araA), L-ribulokinase (araB), and L-ribulose-5-phosphate 4-epimerase (araD), respectively (Fig. 1). D-Xylulose 5-phosphate is eventually metabolized through the reductive pentose phosphate pathway (12). No similar genes for L-arabinose metabolism have been identified in any of the corynebacterial genomes sequenced so far (3,24,38,52,60). Nevertheless, L-arabinose metabolism by C. glutamicum was previously achieved by expression of E. coli araA, araB, and araD genes (26). Although the resulting transformant was able to grow on L-ara...