The 356 amino acid long lambda integrase protein of bacteriophage .lambda. constains two autonomous DNA binding domains with distinct sequence specificities. The amino terminal domain of integrase is implicated to bind to the arm-type sequences and the carboxyl domain interacts with the coretype sequencess. As a first step to understand the molecular mechanism of the integrase-DNA interaction at the arm-type site, the int(am)94 gene carrying an amber mutation at the 94th codon of the int was cloned under the control of the P$\_$tac/ promoter and the lacI$\_$q/ gene. The Int(am)94 mutant protein of amino terminal 93 amino acid residues can be produced at high level from a suppressor free strain harboring the plasmid pInt(am)94. The arm-type binding activity of Int(am)94 were measured in vivo and in vitro. A comparison of the arm-type binding properties of the wild-type integrase and the truncated Int(am)94 mutant indicated that the truncated fragment containing 93 amino acid residues carry all the determinants for DNA binding at the arm-type sites.