Bacterial magnetic particles (BMPs) are utilized for various biomedical applications because they are easily manipulated by magnets, and functional proteins are easily displayed on BMPs. To establish highly expressed protein display on BMPs, strong promoters were identified using Magnetospirillum magneticum AMB-1 genome and proteome databases. Initially, several proteins highly expressed in AMB-1 were identified, and the upstream DNA sequences of the open-reading frames were evaluated using a luciferase-reporter gene assay to compare promoter activities. Consequently, luminescence intensity was 400 times higher due to the novel promoter identified in this study than the magA promoter previously used. Subsequently, efficient protein display on BMPs was performed using the newly identified promoter sequences. This developed display system will facilitate the assembly of various functional proteins onto BMPs to create novel magnetic nanoparticles. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.