Essential Regions for Replication of a Stringent and a Relaxed Plasmid in Escherichia coli
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Escherichia coli is host to a large variety of bacterial plasmids. It gains considerable biochemical and genetic diversity from these extrachromosomal elements while providing for them an environment in which they can reproduce. To be maintained in its host, a plasmid must be able both to replicate its genome and to provide each of the daughter cells with at least one copy of itself during cell division. The determination of which of the essential functions required for the replication process are specified by the plasmid and which functions are provided by the host is a major question of plasmid biology.
F and ColE1 are two plasmids of E. coli that have solved the problems of replication and segregation in different ways. F is a large plasmid (94.5 kb) (Sharp et al. 1972) and is maintained at the low copy number of 1–2 per bacterial chromosome (stringent replication). The low rate...
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↵* Present address: Department of Microbiology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, New York 10032.
