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Gene dosage studies with pleiotropic mutants of Serratia marcescens superactive in the synthesis of marcescin A and certain other exocellular proteins

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Summary

Pleiotropic mutants of Serratia marcescens have been isolated. They synthesize greater quantities of the bacteriocin marcescin A and exocellular lipase and exhibit higher rates of spontaneous induction of prophage than does the wild-type strain. These mutants were found to contain more marcescin A plasmid DNA than the parent strain and, furthermore, this increase in plasmid DNA was observed to be proportional to the increase in synthesis of marcescin A. From these results it is proposed that the mutation functions via a gene-dosage effect (at least in the case of bacteriocin synthesis) and causes an elevated synthesis of bacteriocin plasmid DNA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Biologie der Mikroorganismen., Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Kenneth Timmis & Ulrich Winkler

  2. Department of Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center, 94305, Stanford, California, U.S.A.

    Kenneth Timmis

Authors
  1. Kenneth Timmis
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  2. Ulrich Winkler
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Additional information

Communicated by G. Bertani

A preliminary report of this work was presented to the 1972 Summer Meeting of the Gesellschaft für Physiologische Chemie held in Bochum, Germany (Timmis and Winkler, 1972).

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Timmis, K., Winkler, U. Gene dosage studies with pleiotropic mutants of Serratia marcescens superactive in the synthesis of marcescin A and certain other exocellular proteins. Molec. Gen. Genet. 124, 207–217 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293092

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293092

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