Acquisition of a determinant for chloramphenicol resistance by coliphage lambda.

A determinanat for chloramphenicol resistance, cam, initially detected on a resistance transfer factor (RTF) and since transferred to phage P1, may be acquired from P1 by coliphage lambda. Lambdapcam are obtained when a lambda prophage is induced in bacteria which also harbor P1 cam prophage. Lambdacam formation is not dependent upon host Rec or lambda Red recombination functions. Electron microscopic heteroduplex analysis shows that the cam locus in two lambdapcams is a 5% addition of DNA in the b2 region of lambda, not contiguous with att. The extent and nucloetide sequence of the DNA insertion in the two independent lambdapcam isolates appear to be the same though they are located at different sites within the b2 region. We conclude that the determinant for chloramphenicol resistance is contained on a unique piece of DNA which facilitates its insertion into a number of unrelated genomes.