Unmarked gene integration into the chromosome of Mycobacterium smegmatis via precise replacement of the pyrF gene.

After integration into the bacterial chromosome an exogenous gene may be stably expressed without continued selection for the recombinant locus. However, chromosomal integration events occur infrequently, requiring the concomitant integration of a drug resistance marker in order to identify colonies of recombinant cells. The generation of a drug-resistant recombinant strain can both reduce the in vivo applicability of the strain and preclude the use of recombinant vectors which use the same drug resistance marker. We have constructed a plasmid, pINT-delta, which allows recombination of exogenous genes onto the Mycobacterium smegmatis chromosome. The exogenous gene completely replaces the pyrF gene and the resultant strain lacks any exogenous drug resistance marker. The methodologies described herein are general and applicable even to those bacteria for which extrachromosomal plasmids are not available. Using pINT-delta we integrated the lacZ gene into the M. smegmatis chromosome via a precise exchange of lacZ and pyrF. The resultant strain was used to demonstrate that the expression of genes integrated at the pyrF locus is repressed twofold by inclusion of uracil in the growth medium. In addition, we used pINT-delta to construct an M. smegmatis strain with a precise deletion of its pyrF locus. This strain, TSm-627, grows normally in rich medium but does not grow in medium lacking uracil. TSm-627 cells allow the pyrF gene to be used as a selectable marker for growth on medium lacking uracil. In TSm-627 cells, the pyrF gene is also useful as a counterselectable marker on complete medium containing 5'-fluoroorotic acid and uracil. Two pyrF-containing plasmids, designed to exploit the new delta pyrF strain, have been constructed and their possible applications to problems in mycobacteriology are discussed.