Expression of phage-transposons of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cells of Pseudomonas putida PpGl. II. Zygotic induction, an essential condition for the emergence of defective lysogens

The presence of a large number of clones, which have lost the ability to produce phase, is a feature of PpGl exconjugants, which have acquired markers of the hybrid plasmid containing the genome of the PAO1 phage transposon. Analysis of these clones indicates that they contain plasmids with different defects in the phage genome (point mutations and different deletion lengths which may have an effect on both the phage genome and also plasmid RP4). Mutations of a particular region are selected, the region of early prophage genes. The process of zygotic induction is an essential condition for the arisal of mutants (including deletion mutants). The results of the experiment, which was based on the Luria-Delbruik test, showed that a significant proportion of the mutations, including deletion mutations, arise in the recipient cells PpGl