Summary
Nucleoids prepared by gentle lysis of non-complementing diploid cells resulting from Bacillus subtilis protoplast fusion have been used to transform competent cultures of appropriate recipient strains. The yields of transformants were regularly much larger when the transforming allele was expressed in vivo than when it was unexpressed. Ribonuclease treatment of the lysates prior to their use as donors in transformation did not change the yields of transformants. Proteinase treatment had no effect when the selected trait was expressed in vivo, but it restored transforming activity of unexpressed markers to the level of expressed markers.
Proteins bound to the nucleoids of non-complementing diploids are thus responsible for their inability in vitro to transform for unexpressed markers. Whether these proteins are also responsible in vivo for the chromosomal extinctions observed remains unknown.
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Communicated by F. Kaudewitz
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Bohin, J.P., Ben Khalifa, K., Guillen, N. et al. Phenotypic expression in vivo and transforming activity in vitro: Two related functions of folded bacterial chromosomes. Molec Gen Genet 185, 65–68 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00333791
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00333791