Moreover, this segment in pGP704 has flanking EcoRI and BamHI sequences that prevent the cognate restriction enzymes being used for cloning. For pBAM1, the whole oriV region was streamlined to a minimum (392 bp) and the selleck chemicals internal HindIII removed (while keeping a sequence in the former site with similarity to the functional repeats). Finally, the termini of the segment were furnished by the infrequent restriction site AscI to create the origin of replication module. These changes did not affect any of the properties described for the natural R6KoriV

sequences [9]. pBAM1 and its derivatives are maintained in the specialized strain E. coli CC118λpir, which expresses the π protein from a lysogenic phage Selleckchem AZD1152 HQPA [4]. The next module of the plasmid frame was the sequence that contains the origin of transfer oriT (Figure 1) and enables transfer of pBAM1 from the host strain to a new recipient, when recognized by the conjugative machinery encoded by the broad host range plasmid RK2, also called RP4 [11]. Since the RP4/RK2 conjugal transfer system

is the most promiscuous of all DNA mobilization device known, the presence of oriT allows mobilization of pBAM1 into virtually any Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteria [12] and can even be passed into fungi [13] and eukaryotic cells [14], provided that the construct is exposed to the action of the Tra proteins of RP4 [8]. This transfer can be made by either setting up a tri-parental mating mixture with a donor strain (e.g. E. coli CC118λpir) bearing the R6KoriV/RP4oriT plasmid, a recipient bacterium and helper cells bearing the mob/tra region of RP4 cloned in a plasmid which does not replicate in the recipient [8]. As an alternative,

Oxalosuccinic acid the donor λpir + strain may have the tra/mob functions integrated in its chromosome (for instance, E. coli S17-1λpir) allowing bi-parental mating [15]. Other λpir + E. coli donor strains such as E. coli RH03, which have been engineered to facilitate counter-selection, are also eligible to this end [16]. The oriT region employed in most plasmid vectors designed for mobilization purposes is exceedingly large (1728 bp) and flanked by BamHI sites [8]. As before, we trimmed down the oriT to the minimum of 244 bp required for functionality [11], eradicated one SfiI site present within the core oriT sequence (to allow its inclusion in the polylinker of the vector) and the streamlined module was flanked by the two rare enzyme sites FseI and PshAI. Note, however, that in some cases the plasmid can just be electroporated into target cells and conjugation may not be necessary, although the efficiency is considerably lower.