A moderate thermophilic dibenzofuran (DF) degrader, strain 4B1, was isolated from dioxin-contaminated soil in Vietnam under thermophilic condition. A 165 rRNA gene sequence analysis assigned the strain to genus Paenibacillus. The optimum growth temperature of strain 4B1 was 45 degrees C with a doubling time of 2.7 h in the presence of DF as a sole carbon and energy source. The rate of its growth and DF-degradation were approximately 3-fold higher than those of a reference Paenibacillus sp. strain. The 4B1 strain degraded 89% of 1000 mg L-1 DF within 48 h cultivation at the optimum temperature. TBLASTN analysis based on its draft genome sequence revealed that this strain possessed a dbf gene cluster. The open reading frames (dbfA1A2RBC) in the cluster shared 99-100% identity with those of Paenibacillus sp. YK5, indicating that DF was likely degraded by an angular dioxygenation pathway in strain 4B1. Four genes in the dbf gene cluster (dbfA1A2BC) were partially induced by DF, which was observed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Quantitative PCR analysis of dbfA1 transcripts, encoding the alpha subunit of DF dioxygenase, indicated that dbfA1 was expressed 4-times higher than that of strain YK5 at 45 degrees C. These results suggest that the faster growth and degradation of DF in strain 4B1 could be due to differences in transcriptional regulation of dbf cluster genes. (C) 2019, The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. All rights reserved.