Sequence analysis of aPaenibacillussp. BP-23 recombinant clone coding for a previously described endoglucanase revealed the presence of an additional truncated ORF with homology to family 48 glycosyl hydrolases. The corres-ponding 3509-bp DNA fragment was isolated after gene walking and cloned inEscherichia coliXl1-Blue for expres-sion and purification. The encoded enzyme, a cellulase of 1091 amino acids with a deduced molecular mass of 118 kDa and a pI of , displayed a multidomain organ-ization bearing a canonical family 48 catalytic domain, a bacterial type 3a cellulose-binding module, and a putative fibronectin-III domain
