Isolation and partial characterization of a bacteriophage T5 mutant unable to induce thymidylate synthetase and its use in studying the effect of uracil incorporation into DNA on early gene expression.

A mutant of phage T5 which is unable to induce thymidylate synthetase was isolated. T5 thy mutants synthesized less DNA than did wild-type T5, and the burst size of progeny phage was correspondingly reduced two- to threefold in thy+ Escherichia coli. No DNA or progeny phage were made in E. coli thy hosts grown in the absence of exogenous thymine. When the T5 thy mutation was recombined with a T5 dut mutation (unable to induce dUTPase), replication resulted in progeny which contained significant amounts of uracil in their DNA, and these phage failed to produce plaques unless the plating host was deficient in uracil-DNA glycosylase. T5 phage containing various amounts of uracil in their DNA were prepared and used to determine the effect of uracil on the induction of the early enzyme dTMP kinase. The presence of uracil in the parental DNA increased the rate of induction of this enzyme by about 2.5-fold. The T5 thy gene was mapped and is located near the T5 frd gene on the B region of the T5 genome.