Patent ID: 8685683

Claim:
A method for production of vitamin C or 2-keto-L-gulonic acid comprising culturing a host cell comprising a vector, said vector comprising a polynucleotide operatively linked to expression control sequences allowing expression in a procaryotic host cell or a eucaryotic host cell, said polynucleotide being selected from the group consisting of: (a) a polynucleotide encoding a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence according to SEQ ID NO:2; (b) a polynucleotide comprising the nucleotide sequence according to SEQ ID NO:1; (c) a Gluconobacter polynucleotide obtained by nucleic acid amplification comprising a polymerase chain reaction, wherein a Gluconobacter genomic DNA template and the primers of SEQ ID NO: 3 and SEQ ID NO: 4 are utilized, said polynucleotide encoding a polypeptide having histidine kinase activity; (d) a polynucleotide, the full-length complementary strand of which hybridizes under highly stringent conditions to a polynucleotide as defined in (a) or (b) and which encodes a polypeptide having histidine kinase activity, wherein said highly stringent conditions comprise hybridization at 42Â° C. for 2 to 4 days followed by two washes in 2Ã—SSC, 0.1% SDS at room temperature for 5 to 15 min and two washes in 0.5Ã—SSC, 0.1% SDS or 0.1Ã—SSC, 0.1% SDS at 65 to 68Â° C. for 15 to 30 min; and (e) a polynucleotide which is at least 90% sequence identical to the polynucleotide as defined in (a) or (b) and which encodes a polypeptide having histidine kinase activity.