Summary
Strains carrying an I-like R factor, R64, or its “derepressed” derivative, R64-11, together with an Flac episome mutant in one of ten cistrons determining transfer-proficiency, transferred the Flac mutant at a frequency equivalent to about 1% of the level of R factor transfer. Similarly, R64, R64-11 and transfer-deficient mutants of R64-11, were transferred at increased frequencies in the presence of wild-type Flac. Experiments using RecA− strains showed that mobilisation by recA +-promoted recombination was not involved, and others using strains carrying transfer-deficient mutants of both R64-11 and Flac suggested that even inefficient complementation between R64-11 and Flac transfer mutants did not occur. The transfer systems of the two plasmids seemed, therefore, to be unrelated, and plasmid-specific, although at a low frequency the entire transfer system of one, not just the pilus, could transfer a transfer-deficient mutant of the other.
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Communicated by R. H. Pritchard
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Willetts, N.S. The interaction of an I-like R factor and transfer-deficient mutants of Flac in E. coli K12. Molec. Gen. Genet. 108, 365–373 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267774
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267774