Summary
We have taken advantage of two situations in which the incompatibility barrier between F plasmids is overcome to show that wild-type genes controlling F copy number (cop +) are dominant in trans over mutant genes. The simplest interpretation of our findings is that the cop mutations have inactivated a repressor gene that controls F replication. Since the cop. mutations all map in a region that others have shown by sequence analysis to theoretically encode four proteins, a strong possibility exists that one of these proteins is the repressor.
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Communicated by D. Sherratt
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Kline, B.C., Seelke, R.W. Genetic evidence that control of F replication is negative. Molec Gen Genet 187, 218–224 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00331120
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00331120