Construction of recombinant plasmid carrying the lambda DNA fragment responsible for prophage integration.

The recombinant DNA molecules were constructed from plasmid RSF2124 and the EcoRI fragment of lambda DNA containing the genes responsible for prophage integration. The presence of these genes in recombinant plasmids was detected genetically. lambda int-gene was shown to be expressed in either orientation of insertion in the plasmid. We found that recombinant plasmid was able to integrate into chromosome of lambda lysogens. The integration of plasmid into host chromosome was demonstrated by contransduction of chromosome and plasmid markers using generalized transducer P1 and by specialized transduction with lambda phages.