The construction of a cloning vector designed for gene replacement in Bordetella pertussis

We report here the construction of a plasmid cloning vector, pRTP1, designed to facilitate exchange of cloned and chromosomal alleles of the human bacterial pathogen Bordetella pertussis. pRTP1 provides the ability to successively select two homologous recombination events within the cloned sequences. The first is by selection for maintenance of the ampicillin-resistance gene on the plasmid which is unable to replicate autonomously after transfer via conjugation. The second selection, via streptomycin (Sm) selection, is against the maintenance of vector sequences which contain a gene encoding the Sm-sensitive allele of the gene for ribosomal protein S12 thus rendering an otherwise Sm-resistant strain Sm-sensitive. We demonstrate the use of this vector to introduce an unmarked mutation, constructed in vitro, into the chromosomal locus encoding pertussis toxin.