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. 1979 Oct;140(1):161–166. doi: 10.1128/jb.140.1.161-166.1979

Hypersensitivity to Hg2+ and hyperbinding activity associated with cloned fragments of the mercurial resistance operon of plasmid NR1.

H Nakahara, S Silver, T Miki, R H Rownd
PMCID: PMC216792  PMID: 387720

Abstract

The region of plasmid NR1 concerned with resistance to Hg2+ and organomercurials consists of sequences found on restriction endonuclease fragments EcoRI-H and EcoRI-I. When both fragments were cloned together into a derivative of plasmid ColE1, the hybrid plasmid conferred properties indistinguishable from those of the parental plasmid, NR1: resistance to Hg2+ and to the organomercurials merbromin and fluoresceinmercuric acetate and the inducible synthesis of the enzyme mercuric reductase. When fragment EcoRI-I was cloned into plasmid ColE1, cells containing the plasmid was as sensitive to Hg2+ and organomercurials as plasmidless strains. When fragment EcoRI-H was cloned into ColE1, cells with the hybrid plasmid were hypersensitive to Hg2+ and organomercurials. This hypersensitivity was inducible by prior exposure to low, subtoxic Hg2+ or merbromin levels. It was associated with an inducible hyperbinding activity attributed to a gene governing Hg2+ uptake and found on fragment EcoRI-H (which contains the proximal portion of a mercuric resistance [mer] operon).

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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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