COLICIN E2 PRODUCING BACTERIA FROM YARE RIVER

Abstract

Colicins are a group of specific, plasmid (Col-factor) mediated
bacteriocins produced by different strains of E. coli and related species. In this study, a bacterial colony, E. coli NY12 strain, recovered from the Yare River, England demonstrated to produce an E colicin. This E colicin was further shown to be located on a plasmid which was subsequently transferred to E. coli JM83 hsdR. The JM83 derivative, which expresses the transferred ColE plasmid was then tested against nine different E colicin producing strains which specify nine different immunity groups. The result displayed that the E colicin produced by NY12 strain define the same immunity group as E2, which is, like all known E colicins, encoded on a plasmid and it was named pColE2-AT. Plasmid analysis
and gel electrophoresis confirmed that pColE2-AT was smaller than pColE2-P9. Studies on the recombinant DNA, pATH and pAT12 revealed that the E colicin operon, set of genes, the structural, immunity, and lysis genes of pCoIE2-AT resides within the same EcoRI fragment