B F Smets — Page 2 | PubMed Health

PubMed1995

Plasmid transfer for enhancing degradation capabilities.

The kinetics of plasmid conjugation for the TOL and RP4 plasmids depend strongly on the donor cells' specific growth rate and substrate concentration, both of which determine the cells' energy availability. Although transfer rates can be large when energy availability is high, normal biological processes have low energy availability. Therefore, we propose and evaluate preliminarily a simple scheme to create a small zone of high energy availability.

Bacteria↗

PubMed1993

The specific growth rate of Pseudomonas putida PAW1 influences the conjugal transfer rate of the TOL plasmid.

The kinetics of the conjugal transfer of a TOL plasmid were investigated by using Pseudomonas putida PAW1 as the donor strain and P. aeruginosa PAO 1162 as the recipient strain. Short-term batch mating experiments were performed in a nonselective medium, while the evolution of the different cell types was determined by selective plating techniques. The experimental data were analyzed by using a mass action model that describes plasmid transfer kinetics. This method allowed analysis of the mating experiments by a single intrinsic kinetic parameter for conjugal plasmid transfer. Further results indicated that the specific growth rate of the donor strain antecedent to the mating experiment had a strong impact on the measured intrinsic plasmid transfer rate coefficient, which ranged from 1 x 10(-14) to 5 x 10(-13) ml per cell per min. Preliminary analysis suggested that the transfer rates of the TOL plasmid are large enough to maintain the TOL plasmid in a dense microbial community without selective pressures.

Conjugation, Genetic↗