Patent ID: 7262035

Claim:
An isolated coryneform bacterium comprising a protein encoded by a polynucleotide from a coryneform bacterium, wherein said protein exhibits glutamine synthetase activity and has an amino aid sequence with at least 90% homology to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 25, said amino acid sequence being encoded by a DNA which is obtainable from a coryneform bacterium by PCR using primers of SEQ ID NO:4 and SEQ ID NO: 5, and wherein said coryneform bacterium has a modification such that said glutamine synthetase activity is enhanced, compared to an unmodified coryneform bacterium said modification comprising a method selected from the group consisting of: transforming said coryneform bacterium with a vector for the expression of said protein, increasing the chromosomal copy number of a polynucleotide encoding said protein, replacing the native promoter sequence for a polynucleotide encoding said protein with a stronger promoter sequence, mutating said protein to replace Tyr 405 with another amino acid such that adenylylation is suppressed, and reducing the intracellular activity of a glutamine synthetase adenylyl transferase which has at least 90% homology to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 3, wherein the glutamine synthetase adenylyl transferase is encoded by a DNA hybridizable with a sequence containing nucleotide 2066–5200 of SEQ ID NO: 1 under stringent conditions entailing 1×SSC, 0.1% SDS at 60° C., and the DNA is obtainable from a coryneform bacterium.