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. 1971 Oct;108(1):508–514. doi: 10.1128/jb.108.1.508-514.1971

Physical Properties and Mechanism of Transfer of R Factors in Escherichia coli

Daniel Vapnek 1, Muriel B Lipman 2, W Dean Rupp 3
PMCID: PMC247092  PMID: 4107814

Abstract

The physical properties of F-like and I-like R factors have been compared with those of the wild-type F factor in Escherichia coli K-12 unmated cells and after transfer to recipient cells by conjugation. The F-like R factor R538-1drd was found to have a molecular weight of 49 × 106, whereas the molecular weight of the I-like R factor R64drd11 was 76 × 106. The wild-type F factor, F1, had a molecular weight of 62 × 106. When conjugation experiments are performed by using donor strains carrying these derepressed F-like or I-like R factors, the transferred deoxyribonucleic acid can be isolated as a covalently closed circle from the recipient cells. This circular deoxyribonucleic acid was characterized by making use of the observation that the complementary strands of these R factors can be separated in a CsCl-poly (U, G) equilibrium gradient. The results of the strand-separation experiments show that only one of the complementary strands of the R factor is transferred from the donor to the recipient. With both the F-like and I-like R factors, this strand is the heavier strand in CsCl-poly (U, G). These results indicate that even though F-like and I-like R factors differ greatly in many properties (phage specificity, size, compatability, etc.), they are transferred by a similar mechanism.

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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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