Genetics of Bacillus subtilis chemotaxis: isolation and mapping of mutations and cloning of chemotaxis genes.

We isolated a collection of chemotaxis mutants and characterized them for chemotactic phenotype and genotype. The mutations of most of these mutants mapped in the region between pyrD and thyA. However, the mutation in the gene specifying the chemotactic methyltransferase mapped very close to aroF. From a bank of phages containing Bacillus subtilis DNA we identified two lambda charon4 phages that contained genes specifying chemotactic functions. The inserted DNAs were removed by digestion with restriction endonuclease EcoRI and were found to share a 4.0-kilobase (kb) fragment. One of these DNAs also contained a 7.7-kb fragment, and the other also contained a 10.9-kb fragment. We identified mutants that were complemented by each fragment. The fragments were each ligated into plasmid pFH7 and were incorporated into lysogenic SP beta c2 or a deletion mutant of SP beta c2 in order to form transducing phages. The mutants in the collection containing mutations that mapped in the region between pyrD and thyA were tested for complementation by transducing phages containing the 4.0-kb fragment, the 7.7-kb fragment, the 4.0-kb fragment plus the 7.7-kb fragment, and the 10.9-kb fragment. A total of 24 mutants were complemented by the 4.0-kb fragment, 7 were complemented by the 7.7-kb fragment, 9 were complemented by the 4.0-kb fragment plus the 7.7-kb fragment, 15 were complemented by the 10.9-kb fragment, and 25 were complemented by none of the fragments.