Evidence for a chromosomal location of the genes coding for chloramphenicol production in Streptomyces venezuelae.

Of seven chloramphenicol-producing actinomycetes examined, only Streptomyces venezuelae strain 13s contained extrachromosomal DNA detectable by agarose gel electrophoresis and cesium chloride-ethidium bromide density gradient centrifugation. The single 17-megadalton plasmid present in this strain was indistinguishable from plasmid pUC3 previously isolated from mutagenized cultures. Strains selected for their inability to produce chloramphenicol after treatment with acriflavine or ethidium bromide still contained a plasmid that had the same electrophoretic mobility as plasmid pUC3 and yielded similar fragments when digested with restriction endonucleases. By regenerating protoplasts of strain 13s and screening for isolates lacking extrachromosomal DNA, strain PC51-5 was obtained. The absence of plasmid pUC3 sequences in this strain was confirmed by Southern hybridization using 32P-labeled plasmid as a probe. Since the plasmidless strain produced as much chloramphenicol as did the parent strain, pUC3 contains neither structural nor regulatory genes for antibiotic production. Evidence from electrophoretic analysis of BamHI digests of total cellular DNA from wild-type and dye-treated nonproducing progeny indicated that acriflavine caused structural changes in the chromosome.