Construction and use of a gene bank of Alcaligenes eutrophus in the analysis of ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase genes.

A gene bank of the DNA from the hydrogen bacterium Alcaligenes eutrophus ATCC 17707 was constructed in the broad host range cosmid vector pVK102 and established in Escherichia coli. A triparental replica plating procedure was developed to allow rapid screening of large numbers of isolated E. coli gene bank clones for complementation of A. eutrophus mutants. This procedure was used to identify hybrid cosmids that complemented CO2 fixation-negative (Cfx-), H2 uptake-negative (Hup-), and auxotrophic A. eutrophus mutants. The average insert DNA size in these hybrid cosmids was 22 kilobases. Nine hybrid cosmids that complemented ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase-negative (RuBPCase-) mutants were characterized. They fell into two distinct groups with respect to their restriction patterns. Complementing subclones from the two groups contained no common restriction fragments, but hybridization experiments indicated a high degree of sequence homology. Restriction fragments corresponding to one of the subclones were absent in total DNA from a cured strain that had lost plasmid pAE7, indigenous to the wild type. It is concluded that functional CO2 fixation genes in the A. eutrophus ATCC 17707 chromosome are reiterated on plasmid pAE7.