Mutants defective in the 33K outer membrane protein of Salmonella typhimurium.

Salmonella typhimurium LT2 lines, if phenotypically rough, are fully sensitive to bacteriocin 4-59, produced by Salmonella canastel strain SL1712. Bacteriocin-resistant mutants fell into three classes. Those resistant to phage ES18 and to albomycin proved to be mutants of class chr (equivalent to tonB of Escherichia coli); these mutants still adsorb the bacteriocin and so are classified as tolerant. Another class of (incompletely) tolerant mutants was resistant to phage PH51; their envelope fractions lacked the band corresponding to outer membrane protein 34K, known to serve for adsorption of phage PH51. A third class of mutants, which did not adsorb the bacteriocin, was unaltered in sensitivity to phages. Their envelopes lacked the 33K band, indicating absence of the outer membrane protein 33K, considered to correspond to outer membrane protein II* of E. coli, which in that species is determined at locus ompA (formerly tolG or con). Phage P22 HT105/1 cotransduced the 33K S. typhimurium gene (to be called ompA, to accord with E. coli usage) with pyrD+ at about 30% frequency when the donor allele was ompA+ or one ompA, but at only 3 to 11% when the donor allele was another ompA. When the donor carried either of two long deletions of the put (proline utilization) operon, phage P22 HT105/1 cotransduced put (and ompA+) with pyrD+ at low frequency. The cotransduction data indicate that ompA of S. typhimurium is located between pyrD and put, nearer the former. This corresponds to the map position of ompA in E. coli K-12.