Genetic and physical location of the Escherichia coli rap locus, which is essential for growth of bacteriophage lambda.

The Escherichia coli rap mutant does not support the growth of bacteriophage lambda (D. Henderson and J. Weil, Virology 71:546-559, 1976). We located the rap site at 26 min in the E. coli genetic map and determined the gene order fadR-rap-supF-trp from our transduction experiments. Plasmid pHO1 harbors a 5.6-kilobase-pair segment of the E. coli chromosome which contains the pth gene (B. Hove-Jensen, Mol. Gen. Genet. 201:269-276, 1985). This plasmid complemented rap bacteria, suggesting that it carries the dominant allele rap+. Subcloning experiments reduced the rap-complementing segment to 1.5 kilobase pairs. This segment still contained pth; thus, both loci are tightly linked. The lit mutations that inhibit phage T4 growth in E. coli are located nearby at 25 min (W. Cooley, K. Sirotkin, R. Green, and L. Snyder, J. Bacteriol. 140:83-91, 1979). We showed that rap and lit mutations are phenotypically and genetically different.