Transcription mutants of Escherichia coli : specific isolation of temperature - sensitive RNA polymerase mutants

Abstract

The research described in this dissertation concerns the isolation of conditional-lethal RNA polymerase mutants of Escherichia coli K-12 that are heat-sensitive for growth. Approaches to specification of mutagenesis to structural genes or RNA polymerase were taken, and the specification of screening to RNA polymerase mutants was achieved by application of a technique for rendering bacterial cells permeable to RNA polymerase substrates. A novel enrichment technique designed for the specific selectrion of RNA polymerase mutants was developed in these studies, and used to isolate temperature-sensitive mutants.