Isolation and characterization of a plasmid from Lactobacillus helveticus CP53.

A plasmid, pCP53 (11.5 kilo base pairs long), was isolated from Lactobacillus helveticus CP53 and its restriction map was constructed. A chimeric plasmid, pCP53D (4.7 kb), which had a 2.0-kb HindIII fragment from pCP53 and a tetracycline resistance (Tc) gene from Streptococcus faecalis replicated and expressed tetracycline resistance in Lactobacillus casei CP680. Fifteen strains of L. helveticus were transformed with pCP53D by electroporation and selected for Tc resistance. Transformants were obtained from two out of 15 host strains, L. helveticus CP611 and CP791, with 5 x 10(3) and 50 transformants per microgram of DNA, respectively.