TABLE 1.
Bacterial strains and plasmids used in this work
| Strain or plasmid | Characteristics | Source or reference |
|---|---|---|
| Strains | ||
| Brucella abortus | ||
| 2308 | Wild type, smooth, virulent, Nalr | Laboratory stock |
| S19 | Smooth, vaccine strain, Nalr | Laboratory stock |
| virB1::Kan | 2308 Nalr Kanr, polar mutant of virB1 | This work |
| virB10::Kan | 2308 Nalr Kanr, polar mutant of virB10 | This work |
| virB10::Gm | 2308 Nalr Gmr, nonpolar mutant of virB10 | This work |
| virB10::lacZ-Gm | 2308 Nalr Gmr, chromosomal transcriptional fusion virB10-lacZ | This work |
| virB1::Kan virB10::lacZ-Gm | 2308 Nalr Kanr Gmr, polar mutant of virB1, chromosomal transcriptional fusion virB10-lacZ | This work |
| virB1::Kan(pVK8.3) | B. abortus virB1::Kan harboring the plasmid pVK8.3 | This work |
| virB10::Kan(pVK8.3) | B. abortus virB10::Kan harboring the plasmid pVK8.3 | This work |
| virB10::Gm(pBBR-virB10) | B. abortus virB10::Gm harboring the plasmid pBBR2-virB10 | This work |
| virB1::Kan(pBBR4-virB1) | B. abortus virB1::Kan harboring the plasmid pBBR4-virB1 | This work |
| Brucella suis | ||
| 1330 | Wild type, smooth, virulent | Laboratory stock |
| Brucella ovis | ||
| REO198 | Wild type, rough, virulent | Laboratory stock |
| Plasmids | ||
| pBBR1MCS-2 | Broad-host-range cloning vector, Kanr | 12 |
| pBBR1MCS-4 | Broad-host-range cloning vector, Ampr | 12 |
| pB2A3 | 1.5-kbp fragment with high homology to the virB9-virB10 genes of Agrobacterium tumefaciens cloned into pBluescript SK | 28 |
| pGEM-T-virB1 | 881-bp PCR product containing the B. abortus 2308 virB1 gene cloned into pGEM-T | This work |
| pGEM-T-virB1::Kan | 1.3-kbp BamHI fragment containing a kanamycin resistance cassette with transcriptional terminator cloned into the pGEM-T-virB1 plasmid | This work |
| pVK8.3 | 20-kb BamHI genomic DNA fragment of B. abortus 2308 containing the virB operon cloned into pVK102 | This work |
| pBBR2-virB10 | 1.2-kb EcoRI fragment containing the B. abortus virB10 gene cloned into pBBR1MCS-2 | This work |
| pBBR4-virB1 | 0.88-kb EcoRI fragment containing the B. abortus virB1 gene cloned into pBBR1MCS-4 | This work |