The Streptomyces ghanaensis low copy plasmid pSG2 and its use for vector construction

A plasmid, pSG2, was isolated from Streptomyces ghanaensis and characterized by electron microscopy, buoyant density measurement, and restriction enzyme analysis. The length of 13.8 kb, single restriction sites for HindIII, EcoRV and PvuII and the possibility of deleting non-essential regions of the plasmid made pSG2 a suitable basic replicon for vector development. pSG2 has a copy number of about four. Plasmid pSG2 was fused to a pACYC184 derivative modified to harbour a thiostrepton resistance gene. The resulting plasmid, designated pSW1, is a 16.6 kb shuttle plasmid which replicates in Escherichia coli and in several Streptomyces strains, including S. ghanaensis, S. lividans and S. viridochromogenes. Replacement of a BglII-fragment of plasmid pSG2 by a fragment encoding thiostrepton resistance resulted in a low copy 12.2 kb Streptomyces plasmid. This plasmid, designated pSW2, is a Streptomyces broad host range plasmid.