Transduction of Streptomycin Resistance in Proteus mirabilis

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Abstract
SUMMARY: Five of eleven different temperate Proteus phages are capable of intrastrain transduction of a streptomycin resistance marker. Interstrain transduction of this marker was achieved with three of the five phages. Nuclear segregation and phenomic lag may both be involved in the delay in phenotypic expression of streptomycin resistance. The one transducing phage investigated appears to possess a normal phage genome in that transductant colonies are lysogenic and show lysogenic conversion, at multiplicities of phage input of less than 0.02, and under conditions where secondary infection on the plates can be excluded. However, under these conditions a few transductant clones were encountered which were not lysogenic. This indicates that the transducing and lysogenizing functions of this phage may be divorced from each other. Ultraviolet irradiation has a differential effect on its transducing and plaque-forming abilities.