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Mutants of Escherichia coli K12 (λ)+ non-inducible by thymine deprivation

I. Method of isolation and classes of mutants obtained

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Summary

A selective enrichment method based upon differential killing by thymine deprivation of inducible as compared to non-inducible lysogens was employed to isolate mutants of Escherichia coli K 12(λ)+ deficient in lysogenic induction. The efficiency of the method is such that about 1% of the surviving colonies are resistant to thymineless induction.

About half of the mutants are recA recombination-deficient. Two other classes of non-inducible Rec+ mutants can be distinguished. No temperature conditional bacterial mutations could be obtained.

Our results demonstrate that deficiency in the recA gene product is not the only bacterial factor which prevents lysogenic induction.

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Communicated by R. Pritchard

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Devoret, R., Blanco, M. Mutants of Escherichia coli K12 (λ)+ non-inducible by thymine deprivation. Molec. Gen. Genet. 107, 272–280 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00268700

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