Fine-structure deletion map of the Escherichia coli L-arabinose operon

A fine-structure deletion map of the L-arabinose operon of E. coli was constructed by mapping deletion endpoints against point mutations. Of 350 independent deletions with average endpoint separation of ten nucleotides, 51 ended in the control region between the C and B genes, and the rest ended in the structural genes A, B, C, and D. If deletion endpoints are randomly distributed, the C and B genes are separated by about 510 nucleotides. Deletion endpoints and locations of point mutations in fact do appear randomly interspersed in the C and B genes, but no point mutations were found in the control region between them. Deletions were isolated with the aid of a heat-inducible lambda phage inserted into leucine genes adjacent to the arabinose genes. A high-capacity mating technique was developed for rapidly generating fine structure maps from many deletions and point mutations.