Two mini-F-encoded proteins are essential for equipartition.

The par region of mini-F is both necessary and sufficient to promote equipartition of plasmid copies to daughter cells. It is approximately 2.5 kb long and contains the coding sequences for two proteins, F1 (41 kDa) and F2 (37 kDa). We isolated 13 mutants of a phage lambda-mini-F hybrid that form unstable plasmids. Two of these putative Par- mutants are fully suppressible nonsense (amber) mutants. One of the amber mutants, par-41, eliminates the synthesis of F1, generating a large nonsense fragment of the protein. The other mutant, par-36, eliminates the synthesis of F2. Thus both proteins appear to be essential for plasmid equipartition.