Hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase, which possesses the activities of terminal binding, DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase and RNaseH, has been shown to accomplish viral DNA replication through a pregenomic intermediate. Because the HBV polymerase has not been purified, the expression of HBV polymerase was examined in an E. coli expression system that is under the regulation of arabinose operon. The expressed individual domain containing terminal binding protein, polymerase, or RNaseH turned out to be insoluble. The activities of those domains were not able to be recovered by denaturation and renaturation using urea or guanidine-HCI. The expressed reverse transcriptase containing the polymerase and RNaseH domains became extensively degraded, whereas the proteolysis was reduced in a Ion- mutant. These results indicate that Lon protease proteolyzes the HBV reverse transcriptase expressed in E. coli.