Thymineless death in recombination deficient mutants of Escherichia coli K12.

When grown in thymine-free minimal synthetic medium, thyA recA mutants of Escherichia coli K12 were comparatively more resistant and thyA recBC mutants more sensitive to thymineless death (TLD) than their respective parent strains. No excessive numbers of single-strand breaks were observed in the DNA of the recBC mutant strain starved for thymine, hence the hypersensitivity for TLD in this strain was not caused by this type of DNA damage. Although experiments were performed with the same recBC mutant strain as used by earlier workers, results presented here contradict earlier findings that recBC mutants are no more sensitive and recA mutants are no more resistant to TLD.