EN
In a previous study we reported for the first time the isolation and characterization of urate oxidase enzyme from Pseudomo-nas aeruginosa. In this work we isolated and cloned a 1.350 kilobase DNA fragment that encode a putative urate oxidase gene from the genomic library of P. aeruginosa Ps-x. The nucleotide sequence of the cloned DNA insert revealed an open reading frame that encodes a protein of a molecular weight of 54.0 kDa. The cloned DNA fragment showed an uricolytic activity when expressed in E. coli DH5α . Surprisingly, the nucleotide sequence of the cloned gene showed more than 99% identity to the gene encoding hypothetical protein of P. aeruginosa PAO1. Moreover, the sequence of the cloned gene was closely similar to the corresponding unease gene of Cellulomonas Jlavigena (44% similarity), but showed lower similarity values to that of Bacillus sp. BT-90 (24% similarity), Candida utilis (24% similarity). Interestingly, the isolated uricase gene showed closer similarity to uricase from yeast-like symbiotic fungi Beauveria bassiana (35%), Tolypocladium inflatum (29%), Paecilomyces tenuipes (27%) and Cerataphis fransseni (24%).