Localized hydroxylamine mutagenesis, and cotransduction of threonine and lysine genes, in Streptomyces venezuelae.

A lysate of the generalized transducing phage SV1, grown on the prototrophic type strain 10712 of Streptomyces venezuelae, was mutagenized with hydroxylamine and used to transduce a lysineless auxotroph to lysine independence on supplemented minimal agar. A complex threonine mutant, strain VS95, was isolated from among the transductants and was shown to be carrying at least two different thr mutations. These were about 50% cotransducible with alleles of four independently isolated lysA mutations, as were two other independently isolated threonine mutations, thr-1 and hom-5. The location of thr genes close to lysA occurs in at least three other streptomycetes, but apparently not in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), in which the lysA and thr loci are at diametrically opposite locations on the linkage map. This first observation of cotransduction between loci governing the biosynthesis of different amino acids in the genus Streptomyces demonstrates the feasibility of fine-structure genetic analysis by transduction in these antibiotic-producing bacteria.