Several clones obtained from Serratia marcescens stimulated E. coli TP2139 (${Delta}lac, ;{Delta} crp$) cells to use maltose as a carbon source. The crp gene clone, pCKB12, was confirmed to stimulate the $eta$-galactosidase activity, by Southern hybridization [31]. The nucleotide sequence of the crp region consisting of 1,979 bp was determined. The sequencing of the fragment led to the identification of two open reading frames: One of these, the crp gene, encoded 210 amino acid and the other encoded a truncated protein. The S. marcescens and E. coli crp genes showed a higher degree of divergence in their nucleotide sequence with 120 changes, however, the corresponding amino acid sequences showed only two amino acid differences. Yet, an analysis of the amino acid divergence revealed that the catabolite gene activator protein, the crp gene product, was the most conserved protein observed so far. Using a crp-lac protein fusion, it was demonstrated that S. marcescens CRP could repress its own expression, probably via a mechanism similar to that previously described for the E. coli crp gene.