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. 1994 Jan;176(2):535–539. doi: 10.1128/jb.176.2.535-539.1994

Efficient transposition in mycobacteria: construction of Mycobacterium smegmatis insertional mutant libraries.

C Guilhot 1, I Otal 1, I Van Rompaey 1, C Martìn 1, B Gicquel 1
PMCID: PMC205082  PMID: 8288551

Abstract

The Tn611 transposon was inserted into pCG63, a temperature-sensitive plasmid isolated from an Escherichia coli-mycobacterial shuttle vector which contains the pAL5000 and pUC18 replicons. The resulting plasmid, pCG79, was used to generate a large number of insertional mutations in Mycobacterium smegmatis. These are the first mycobacterial insertional mutant libraries to be constructed by transposition directly into a mycobacterium. No highly preferential insertion sites were detected by Southern blot analysis of the chromosomal DNAs isolated from the insertion mutants. Auxotrophic mutants with various phenotypes were isolated at a frequency ranging from 0.1 to 0.4%, suggesting that the libraries are representative. The pCG79 system thus seems to be a useful tool for the study of M. smegmatis genetics and may be applicable to other mycobacteria, such as the M. tuberculosis complex.

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Selected References

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