Duplications of histidine transport genes in Salmonella typhimurium and their use for the selection of deletion mutants.

We demonstrate that tandem duplications of the histidine transport operon can be selected by requesting elevated levels of transport activity to be present. Several strains were constructed which contain duplications heterozygotic for either hisJ, hisQ, or hisP. The size of one duplication which was analyzed in detail is about 16 genes, with one end close to the promoter site (dhuA) of the histidine transport operon and, therefore, enclosing about 12 more genes counterclockwise to this operon. Duplication-carrying strains could be utilized for the selection of deletion mutations by requiring both copies of the operon to be rendered defective simultaneously and, therefore, unable to transport into the cell an inhibitory histidine analog, alpha-hydrazino imidazole propionic acid. Over 60% (probably as high as 100%) of the alpha-hydrazino imidazole propionic acid-resistant strains arising in the selection are deletion mutants. The principle of our selection method is generally applicable and will be useful in the accumulation of deletions for mapping and fusing of genes and other purposes.