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The mutagenic effect of ultraviolet radiation and nitrous acid onMycobacterium phlei

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Abstract

Lethal and mutagenic effects of nitrous acid and UV radiation onMycobacterium phlei were studied Three auxotrophic strains of the PA strain ofMycobacterium phlei were obtained: ala-, his-, and gly- (ser-) INHr Bods of the his- strain grown in liquid media are longer to filamentous as compared with cells of the prototrophic PA strain grown in the same media, whereas cells of the gly- (ser-) INHr mutant are shorter to coccobacillary. Cells of the ala- strain are characterized by their various length from normal to coccobacillary. The auxotrophic strains obtained differ from each other by a frequency of spontaneous reversions to prototrophy. The his- strain is the most stable, a frequency of spontaneous reversions to prototrophy being 10-9. The gly- (ser-) INHr strain reverts spontaneously to prototrophy with a frequency of 10-8 to 10-7. The ala- strain spontaneously reverting with a frequency of 10-5 is the most labile. The auxotrophic mutants obtained do not differ from the original prototrophic strain in the other properties studied.

A change in a frequency of INH and STM-resistant mutants was also studied. It was found that under the influence of UV radiation a frequency of INH-resistant mutants increases 43 to 80 fold as compared with a frequency of spontaneous mutations, this latter being about 2.6 × 10-6. No substantial increase in a frequency of STM-resistant mutants was found using UV irradiation under the given experimental conditions; their spontaneous frequency equals to 9.0 × 10-9 to 2.0 X 10-8.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics and Variability of Microorganisms, Institute of Microbiology, Czechoslovak Academy of Science, Prague 4

    Miluše Radochová, J. Koníček & I. Málek

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  1. Miluše Radochová
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  2. J. Koníček
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  3. I. Málek
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Radochová, M., Koníček, J. & Málek, I. The mutagenic effect of ultraviolet radiation and nitrous acid onMycobacterium phlei . Folia Microbiol 11, 163–168 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02901427

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02901427

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