Isolation and <i>in silico</i> analysis of a new subclass of parasporin 4 from <i>Bacillus thuringiensis coreanensis</i>

Previous screening of Bt standard strains revealed the presence of a partial <i>ps4</i> gene in <i>Bacillus thuringiensis coreanensis</i> strain. The alignment obtained by the BLAST tool revealed 100% identity between the fragment detected in this work with a hypothetical protein (ANN35810.1) from the genome of that same strain. Considering this, the isolation of the complete gene present in this strain was performed by applying the polymer chain reaction (PCR) technique, using the hypothetical sequence as a basis for the primers elaboration. The <i>in silico</i> analysis of the obtained sequence revealed 92.03% similarity with the <i>ps4</i> sequence presented in the database (AB180980). Protein modeling studies and comparison of their structures revealed that the <i>B. thuringiensis coreanensis</i> has a new subclass of PS4, denominated PS4Ab1, being an important source of parasporin to be explored in biotechnological applications.