Correlation between UV dose requirement for lambda bacteriophage induction and lambda repressor concentration.

Escherichia coli K-12 wild type and a uvrA mutant derivative were used to construct isogenic strains bearing one, two, three, or more phage lambda cI genomes and containing increasing concentration of lambda repressor as measured by in vitro operator DNA-binding assays. The survival and phage induction in response to UV irradiation were determined. In both strains, dose-response relationships were obtained as a function of the cellular repressor concentration. The uvrA lysogens required one-tenth the UV fluence of the wild-type counterparts for induction. Lysogenic strains containing plasmids that overproduce the lambdaind+ repressor and the same lysogens with plasmids overproducing the lambdaind- repressor displayed the same survival curves as the nonlysogenic parental strain; however, only the former produced infectious centers (at a frequency of 2 x 10(-3) to 5 x 10(-4) in response to radiation.