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The site of action of the F transfer inhibitor

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Summary

The mechanism of inhibition of F transfer from E. coli K12 cells containing the fin + R factor R100 was studied. For this, a series of Flac double mutants carrying both a traO -mutation, which prevents function of the transfer inhibitor, and a suppressible mutation in one of ten genes required for conjugational DNA transfer, were constructed. The levels of retransfer of these elements from cells carrying a wild-type Fhis element and R100 showed that of the ten transfer genes, only traJ was directly affected by the transfer inhibitor. Furthermore, in the case of R100 and therefore probably in the case of F itself, it was shown that the products of the other nine genes are absent from the cell during transfer inhibition, suggesting that the traJ product is required for their synthesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MRC Molecular Genetics Unit, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

    David Finnegan & Neil Willetts

  2. Genetics Laboratory Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, England

    David Finnegan

Authors
  1. David Finnegan
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  2. Neil Willetts
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Additional information

Communicated by R. Devoret

D.F. acknowledges the support of a George Murray Scholarship from the University of Adelaide, Australia.

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Finnegan, D., Willetts, N. The site of action of the F transfer inhibitor. Molec. Gen. Genet. 127, 307–316 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267101

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267101

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