A generalized transducing bacteriophage for Serratia marcescens

Using Serratia marcescens 2170 harbouring plasmid pTroy11 (encoding for LamB), and lambda (lambda:: Tn5) we constructed a collection of 25 auxotrophic mutations induced by Tn5 insertions. These mutants permitted the use an easy screening method for generalized transducing bacteriophages. Out of twelve bacteriophages isolated from natural sources only one (phage 3M) was able to transduce all Tn5 insertions tested. The preliminary characterization of bacteriophage 3M indicates that it belongs to the Myoviridae family.