The regulation of transcription in bacteriophage T5-infected Escherichia coli.

The expression of bacteriophage T5-specific RNA and protein in infected cells is temporally separated into three classes: class I (preearly), class II (early), and class III (late). By immunoprecipitation techniques we have shown that T5 infection of cells leads to the synthesis of one class I polypeptide (11,000 daltons) and two class II polypeptides (90,000 and 15,000 daltons) capable of binding to the RNA polymerase of the host Escherichia coli cell. One of the class II polypeptides (90,000 daltons) is the product of gene C2, which is an essential gene product required for the initiation of class III RNA synthesis. The colicinogenic factor, ColIb, is a plasmid which prevents the normal synthesis of class II and the III bacteriophage T5-specific RNA in infected colicinogenic (ColIb+) cells. In T5-infected colicinogenic cells, only the T5 class I polypeptide is found associated with the RNA polymerase. Mutants of T5, designated T5h minus, are capable of growth on both noncolicinogenic and ColIb+ hosts. Extracts of T5h minus infected ColIb+ cells were shown to lack a small class I polypeptide (12,000 daltons) as compared to T5-infected cells. The h minus mutation, however, has no effect on the levels of the class I T5 polypeptide of similar molecular weight which is bound to the RNA polymerase. One effect of the h minus mutation is to enhance the quantities of the two class II polypeptides bound to the enzyme.