The yellow-pigmented bacterial strain causing green spot rot and death of laver was isolated from Porphyra dentata. This strain has been identified as Pseudomonas sp., harboring agarase, xylanase. and protease activity, as well as carboxymethyl-cellulase (CMCase). Using genomic DNA from the Pseudomonas sp. SK38 digested with Sau3AI and ligated into pBluescript II KS+, we isolated a eel gene encoding a CMCase in Pseudomonas sp. SK38. A 4.5-kb fragment was subcloned into pKR400. The structure of the cel9A gene consists of an open reading frame of 1,521 bp starting with a GTG start codon and ending with a TAG stop codon. It thus encodes 506 amino acid residues of a protein with a calculated molecular weight of 52,636 daltons plus a signal peptide of 22 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cel9A protein is similar to the same protein of Clostridium thermocellum. It contains. in particular. the two conserved regions of the glycoside hydrolase family 9. The apparent molecular mass of the Cel9A protein is 52 kDa as estimated by sodium dodecyl sulfatepolyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The enzyme is most active at pH 6-7 and an optimal temperature of around 30 degreesC.