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. 1988 Nov;54(11):2756–2758. doi: 10.1128/aem.54.11.2756-2758.1988

Novel method for studying plasmid transfer in undisturbed river epilithon.

M J Bale 1, M J Day 1, J C Fry 1
PMCID: PMC204368  PMID: 3145711

Abstract

A method for in situ mating experiments is described which involved overnight incorporation of donors containing the mercury resistance plasmid pQM1 and recipients into the epilithon on separate river stones. The stones were then joined to begin the mating. Transfer frequencies obtained were between 2.2 x 10(-1) and 2.5 x 10(-6) per recipient and appeared to depend on the donor-to-recipient ratio (489/1 to 0.0047/1) and not on the river temperature (12 to 19 degrees C). Controls showed that the low density of donors and recipients at the end of the experiment (3.4 x 10(2) to 7.0 x 10(5) cm-2) did not significantly affect the heterotrophic bacterial count (1.43 x 10(6) to 6.39 x 10(6) cm-2) nor the fluorescent-pseudomonad count (2.3 x 10(4) to 9.33 x 10(4) cm-2).

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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