The nucleotide sequence of a 2-kilobase DNA fragment of the tdc region of Escherichia coli K-12, previously cloned in this laboratory, revealed two open reading frames, tdcC and ORFX, downstream from the tdcB gene (formerly designated tdc) encoding biodegradative threonine dehydratase. A 24-base-pair sequence separated tdcC from the dehydratase coding region, and an untranslated region of 60 nucleotides, which contains a recognizable -10 consensus sequence, was found between tdcC and ORFX. The deduced amino acid sequence of tdcC showed it to be a large hydrophobic polypeptide of 431 amino acid residues, whereas ORFX coded for a small 135-residue polypeptide lacking glutamine and tryptophan. A computer-assisted sequence analysis revealed no similarity among the tdcB, tdcC, and ORFX polypeptides, and a search of the GenBank database failed to detect similarity with any other known proteins. The tdc genes and ORFX showed similar codon usage and, in analogy with other bacterial genes, showed codon usage typical for genes expressed at an intermediate level. Transcriptional analysis with S1 nuclease indicated two distinct transcription start sites upstream of the tdcB gene in regions previously identified as promoterlike elements P1 and P2. Interestingly, expression of tdcB and tdcC, but not ORFX, was contingent upon the presence of P1. These results taken together tend to suggest that the biodegradative threonine dehydratase is the second gene in a polycistronic transcription unit constituting a novel operon (tdcABC) in E. coli implicated in anaerobic threonine metabolism.Biodegradative threonine dehydratase (EC 4.2.1.16) of Escherichia coli catalyzes the pyridoxal phosphate-dependent dehydration of L-threonine and L-serine to ammonia and to a-ketobutyrate and pyruvate, respectively (22). The enzyme is normally induced under anaerobic culture conditions in tryptone-yeast extract medium lacking fermentable carbohydrates. Recently, Hobert and Datta (11) devised a synthetic medium consisting of four amino acids, threonine, serine, valine, and isoleucine, plus cyclic AMP and fumarate, which supported higher levels of dehydratase synthesis as compared with that found in the rich medium with or without cyclic AMP and fumarate. Because the requirements for cyclic AMP and fumarate were absolute in terms of enzyme synthesis, it was proposed that not the amino acids themselves but some metabolite(s) derived from these amino acids during anaerobic metabolism was needed for dehydratase induction. In addition, Merberg and Datta (17) reported that various strains of E. coli with unrelated genotypes produced various levels of the enzyme in the same medium and that mutations at multiple loci on the chromosome influenced enzyme expression in vivo. These cumulative findings led to the notion that a complex network of regulatory systems controls the synthesis of dehydratase in anaerobic culture conditions.To understand the mechanism of dehydratase induction at the DNA level, we cloned a 6.2-kilobase-pair (kb) DNA fragment of E. coli ...