Insertional inactivation of Treponema denticola tap1 results in a nonmotile mutant with elongated flagellar hooks.

ABSTRACT: The treponemal fla operon is comprised of numerous motility-related genes; however, the initial gene of this operon, tap1, has no known function. A recently developed system to generate specific mutants in Treponema denticola was utilized to determine if Tap1 was essential for motility. T. denticola tap1 and flanking DNA were identified, cloned, and sequenced, and a suicide plasmid that contained tap1 interrupted with an erythromycin resistance cassette (ermF and ermAM) was constructed. Because of potential polar effects from this cassette, a second plasmid that contained tap1 interrupted with a modified erythromycin resistance cassette that lacked the putative ermF transcription terminator was constructed. Electroporation-mediated allelic exchange incorporated the interrupted tap1 genes i

SUBMITTER: Limberger RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC93852 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature