Chemotaxis in Escherichia coli: construction and properties of lambda tsr transducing phage

The tsr gene of Escherichia coli, located at approximately 99 min on the chromosomal map, encodes a methyl-accepting protein that serves as the chemoreceptor and signal transducer for chemotactic responses to serine and several repellents. To determine whether any other chemotaxis or motility genes were located in the tsr region, we constructed and characterized two lambda tsr transducing phages that each contain about 12 kilobases of chromosomal material adjacent to tsr. lambda tsr70 carries sequences from the promoter-proximal side of tsr; lambda tsr72 carries sequences from the promoter-distal side of tsr. Restriction maps of the bacterial inserts in these phages and Southern hybridization analyses of the bacterial chromosome indicated that the tsr gene is transcribed in the counterclockwise direction on the genetic map. Insert deletions were isolated in lambda tsr70 and transferred into the host chromosome to examine the null phenotype of tsr. All such strains exhibited wild-type swimming patterns and chemotactic responses to a variety of stimuli, but were specifically defective in serine taxis and other Tsr-mediated responses. In addition, UV programming experiments demonstrated that Tsr and several of its presumptive degradation products were the only bacterial proteins encoded by lambda tsr70 and lambda tsr72 that required host FlbB/FlaI function for expression. These findings indicate that there are probably no other chemotaxis-related genes in the tsr region. A series of tsr point mutations were isolated by propagating lambda tsr70 on a mutD host and used to construct a fine-structure map of the tsr locus. These mutations should prove valuable in exploring structure-function relationships in the Tsr transducer.