Efficient amplification of multiple transposon-flanking sequences.

Transposon mutagenesis is a very useful tool for gene identification in bacteria. Once the transposon mutants of interest are isolated, it is often necessary to identify the sequences that flank the transposon insertions. We devised an efficient method for specific amplification of transposon-flanking sequences that requires the sequence information of only transposon-specific sequences. The basic steps for this method consists of (1) digestion with a restriction enzyme, (2) ligation with a Y-shaped linker and (3) polymerase chain reaction amplification using a transposon-specific primer and a primer specific to the Y-shaped linker. The feasibility of this method was demonstrated with mini-Tn5 mutants of Salmonella typhimurium. We also found that this method can be used for simultaneous amplification of multiple transposon-flanking sequences.