Propagation of some human DNA sequences in bacteriophage lambda vectors requires mutant Escherichia coli hosts

The growth of clones of human genomic DNA fragments in a bacteriophage lambda vector has been examined in a number of different Escherichia coli hosts. A large proportion (8.9%) of the phages carrying different fragments of the human genome fail to grow on standard rec+ hosts but will grow on hosts carrying mutations in the recB, recC, and sbcB genes. Heteroduplex analysis in the electron microscope of DNA from four of these phages revealed substantial secondary structure, including snap-back regions 200-500 base pairs in length. Such structures were not found in phages from the same DNA library that grow in rec+ hosts. These results are interpreted in the light of prior observations [Leach, D.R.F. & Stahl, F. (1983) Nature (London) 305, 448-451] showing that inverted repetitions cloned in phage lambda can be propagated in recB recC sbcB hosts but not in rec+ hosts.