Summary
Escherichia coli K12 Hfr H Tsxs Strs and F- Pro- Tsxr His- Arg- Strr bacteria were conjugated in the absence of arginine with or without glucose. The efficiency of conjugation, measured by the frequency of Pro+ and His+ recombinants was not affected. Arginine starvation alone did not affect the tsx s gene expression which occurred in all the zygotes which had received the gene. In contrast, argine and glucose starvation allows tsx s expression only in those zygotes in which the donor gene had been integrated in the genome. As the glucose starvation brings on a destabilization of the messenger RNA synthesized by the F- cells in absence of arginine, the results can be interpreted as follows: the transferred tsx s genes are transitorily expressed in all the zygotes at the unintegrated state. After this transient period, only those genes integrated in the chromosomes of the zygotes continue to be expressed.
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Communicated by F. Gros
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Leal, J. Effect of glucose starvation on the expression of transferred tsx genes in Escherichia coli K12 zygotes. Molec. gen. Genet. 147, 53–58 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337935
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337935