Patent ID: 8236524

Claim:
A method of producing a heterologous protein or polypeptide comprising: i. culturing a modified Bacillus microorganism comprising a modified gene encoding a modified SecA protein that replaces the endogenous SecA gene and a gene encoding the heterologous protein or polypeptide in a culture medium under conditions that permit expression of the gene encoding the heterologous protein or polypeptide; and ii. collecting the heterologous protein or polypeptide from the culture medium; wherein said modified SecA protein is derived from a non-modified SecA protein in which 60-80 carboxyl-terminal amino acids of said non, modified SecA protein have been deleted, said non-modified SecA is selected from the group consisting of: (A) A protein having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2: (B) A protein having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2 with deletion, substitution or addition of 1 to 10 amino acids, and further having the same functions as SecA; and (C) A protein having an amino acid sequence with 95% or higher identity with the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2 and further having the same functions as SecA.