Genetic characterization of an Escherichia coli mutant deficient in organophosphonate biodegradation.

An E. coli mutant deficient in organophosphonate biodegradation has been complemented with a cosmid library prepared from a BamHI partial digest of wild-type E. coli W3110. Mutant E. coli SL724, when transformed with cosmid pSL163 and plasmid pSL263, regained the ability to exploit ethylphosphonate as a sole source of phosphorus during growth. In route to complementation, the Tn5 insert of SL724 was subcloned and restriction enzyme mapped. Complementing pSL163 and pSL263 were also characterized via restriction enzyme digests.