Characterisation of mutants of Escherichia coli K12, selected by resistance to streptozotocin.

From cultures of sensitive bacteria, treated with the antibiotic streptozotocin, two classes of resistant mutants can be isolated: 1) mutants, resistant under all the conditions tested to even the highest doses of the antibiotic. These are either pleiotropic-defective, pts-mutants, or more frequently, mutants lacking a transport system (enzyme IINag-complex of the PEP-dependent phosphotransferase system) encoded by the gene nagE. This gene is inducible by N-acetyl-glucosamine and seems to be part of the nag operon. The transport system in question is responsible for the uptake of N-acetyl-glucosamine, of D-glucosamine and of streptozotocin; 2) conditional resistant mutants which are unable to energize or to synthesize the streptozotocin transport system under certain growth conditions but do have the transport activity under other conditions. These include a) mutants auxotrophic for amino acids, vitamins, or nucleotides, b) mutants negative or sensitive to carbohydrates in the medium, and c) mutants wth defects in energy metabolism such as PEP synthesis.