A method for constructing single-copy lac fusions in Salmonella typhimurium and its application to the hemA-prfA operon.

This report describes a set of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium strains that permits the reversible transfer of lac fusions between a plasmid and either bacterial chromosome. The system relies on homologous recombination in an E. coli recD host for transfer from plasmid to chromosome. This E. coli strain carries the S. typhimurium put operon inserted into trp, and the resulting fusions are of the form trp::put::[Kanr-X-lac], where X is the promoter or gene fragment under study. The put homology flanks the lac fusion segment, so that fusions can be transduced into S. typhimurium, replacing the resident put operon. Subsequent transduction into an S. typhimurium strain with a large chromosomal deletion covering put allows selection for recombinants that inherit the fusion on a plasmid. A transposable version of the put operon was constructed and used to direct lac fusions to novel locations, including the F plasmid and the ara locus. Transductional crosses between strains with fusions bearing different segments of the hemA-prfA operon were used to determine the contribution of the hemA promoter region to expression of the prfA gene and other genes downstream of hemA in S. typhimurium.