Construction of a tyrP-lac operon fusion strain and its use in the isolation and analysis of mutants derepressed for tyrP expression.

The gene tyrP, which codes for a component of the tyrosine-specific transport system, has been localized on the Escherichia coli K-12 chromosome at min 42. A tyrP-lac operon fusion was constructed and used to isolate mutants that have altered expression from the tyrP promoter. All putative tyrP operator mutations were transferred onto a plasmid vector by recombination in vivo. Restriction enzyme analysis of the resultant plasmids suggests that some of these mutants arose from either an insertion or a deletion of DNA occurring within the region of DNA that contains the tyrP promoter.