Gene cat-86 of Bacillus pumilus, specifying chloramphenicol-inducible chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, was previously cloned in Bacillus subtilis on plasmid pUB110. The nucleotide sequence of cat-86 indicates that the gene encodes a protein of 220 amino acids and contains TTG as the translations-initiation codon. The proteins specified by cat-86 and the cat genes present on pC194, pC221 and Tn9 appear to share regions of amino acid sequence similarity. cat-86 is a structural gene on the B. subtilis expression plasmid pPL608. Restriction sites exist within the gene that should permit the product of inserted heterologous coding sequences to be synthesized in B. subtilis as fusion proteins.