Transposon mutagenesis and strain construction in Zymomonas mobilis

Conjugative or mobilizable plasmids carrying the transposable elements Tn5, Tn501 or mini Mu were readily transferred from Escherichia coli donors into Zymomonas mobilis recipients with frequencies depending both on donor and recipient strain used. With the exception of pULB113 (RP4::mini Mu), all foreign plasmids exhibited high instability in Z. mobilis transconjugants under both selective and non-selective conditions. Transposition events and consequent mutagenesis occurred readily in Z. mobilis transconjugant strains, with Tn5 and Tn501 being far less successful than mini Mu. Transposon mutagenesis with the help of mini Mu resulted in the isolation of a large number of independent auxotrophs with polyauxotrophs, cysteine, methionine and isoleucine requiring-isolates being the most frequent. When chromosomal DNA from all these mutants was digested with various restriction enzymes and the resulting restriction patterns were hybridized with a mini Mu probe, the majority of these mutants appeared to have insertions at different sites of the chromosome. Thus, transposon mutagenesis by mini Mu is proven to be a simple and efficient tool for mutant production and the genetic analysis of Z. mobilis.