Studies on Tn951 (lac+) expression in Agrobacterium.

None of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. rubi strains tested produces detectable amounts of beta-galactosidase although they are capable of utilizing lactose as sole source of carbon. This opportunity was taken to investigate the expression of lac transposon Tn951 (Cornelis et al. 1978) in Agrobacterium with the ultimate goal of using this system to investigate alien gene expression. When the transposon was introduced with the help of a broad-host range plasmid, RP1, the transconjugants produced significant quantities of beta-galactosidase which was inducible by isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside. Tn951 was capable of restoring the Lac+ phenotype to an A. tumefaciens mutant not capable of using lactose. Cellobiose, a known inducer of aldohexopyranoside: cytochrome c oxidoreductase (which regulates the characteristic 3-ketolactose production in Agrobacterium; van Beeumen and De Ley (1968), had no effect on beta-galactosidase activity.