envB mutations confer UV-sensitivity to Salmonella typhimurium and UV-resistance to Escherichia coli

Fts insertional mutant of Salmonella typhimurium

A temperature-sensitive filamentation (fts) Salmonella typhimurium mutant was isolated after transposon mutagenesis with mini-Tn 10dTc. The mutant was unable to form colonies after 20 h incubation at 37 degrees C on LB agar. Colonies appeared, however, after longer incubation at the restrictive temperature. Filamentation affected only part of the bacterial population. Rapid mapping using Mu dP22 hybrid phages revealed that the mutation, ftsD220, lies within minutes 68.5 and 73.6 on the genetic map. Further analysis revealed that the ftsD220 mapped at min 73 and that it is linked to cysG (6%) and to aroB (39%). Complementation tests suggested that the ftsD220 mutation is not homologous to a Escherichia coli ftsH mutation.

Salmonella typhimurium TnphoA mutants with increased sensitivity to biological and chemical detergents

Salmonella typhimurium is a ubiquitous pathogenic bacterium able to sustain the environmental conditions of the gastrointestinal tract, including biliary salts. To understand the mechanisms involved in bile salt resistance and, more generally, detergent resistance, we investigated S. typhimurium mutants produced with the random mutagenic TnphoA transposon. A total of 3,000 transpositional mutants were isolated. Three strains among the 1,432 first mutants lost the ability to grow in the presence of biological and chemical detergents. They were prototrophic and exhibited normal lipopolysaccharide and outer membrane protein profiles after SDS-PAGE. They did not show sensitivity to dyes but showed very different sensitivities to antibiotics. For each mutant strain, Southern blotting analysis revealed a unique TnphoA insertion at different chromosomal locations. These observations were confirmed by transduction experiments.

Conditional transduction of Salmonella typhimurium envB mutations

Joint transduction of the argR and envB genes was observed, at a frequency of 24.5%, when four envB strains were transduced to tetracycline resistance (Tetr) with bacteriophage P22 grown on an argR372::Tn10 envB+ donor. When round-cell argR372::Tn10 derivatives of those envB strains were used as donors, two of them did not produce envB transductants in wild-type LT2 and other envB+ recipients, even though large numbers of Tetr transductants were obtained. This apparent exclusion of envB mutations did not occur when mecillinam-resistant derivatives of those envB+ strains were used as recipients. Mutations conferring partial resistance to mecillinam were found, unlinked to the argR-envB region, in three of the four envB strains studied; envB+ derivatives of the four strains were competent to accept envB mutations excluded by wild-type recipients. It is suggested that some envB mutations are lethal in the absence of suppressor mutations, some of which increase resistance to mecillinam.