Summary
Thymineless mutants ofSalmonella typhimurium which are able to grow with low added concentrations of thymine (20 μM) fall into two classes on the basis of growth on deoxyribose as sole carbon source. Those which can grow are deoxyribomutase negative and those which cannot are deoxyriboaldolase negative. The former class are inhibited by deoxynucleosides and this provides a method for discriminating between different classes oftlr mutants ofEscherichia coli K12, which cannot utilize deoxyribose as a carbon source. It is suggested that the sensitivity of deoxyriboaldolase negative strains is due to the accumulation of deoxyribose-5-phosphate. The data also indicate that deoxyribose-5-phosphate is the inducer of thymidine phosphorylase. It seems that one or both of the deoxyribose phosphates is the toxic compound, and that reversal of inhibition by ribonucleosides is due to inhibition of the enzymes catalysing their formation from deoxynucleosides. We propose that the symbolsdrm anddra be used to denote the structural genes for deoxyribomutase and deoxyriboaldolase respectively.
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Beacham, I.R., Eisenstark, A., Barth, P.T. et al. Deoxynucleoside-sensitive mutants ofSalmonella typhimurium . Molec. Gen. Genet. 102, 112–127 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01789138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01789138