Prophage mutation causing heat inducibility of defective Bacillus subtilis bacteriophage PBSX

A mutant of Bacillus subtilis 168 has been isolated in which the defective phage PBSX was heat inducible, whereas another phage, phi105, was not so induced. A culture of the mutant grown at 30 degrees C, when shifted to 45 degrees C, began to lyse after 45 min; cell viability began to decrease after 10 min. Heat-induced lysis of the mutant was prevented by chloramphenicol. DNA, RNA, protein, and peptidoglycan synthesis were normal at the nonpermissive temperature up to the time of lysis. The site of xhi-1479 mutation causing this phenotype was linked (50%) in phage PBS1-mediated transduction to the host marker metC and to another PBSX marker xtl and was thus thought to map within the PBSX prophage. The order of markers was argC-thiB-metA-xhi-metC. The xhi mutation was thus distinct from another mutation, tsi-23, causing a similar heat inducibility of PBSX (Siegel and Marmur, 1969), which was unlinked to the metC marker. tsi-23 is therefore thought to be a host mutation, and the available evidence for a scattered phage genome being the cause of the defective nature of PBSX is thus less tenable. It was shown that the mutant, besides carrying the xhi mutation, also carried another closely linked mutation, xki-1479, which caused the PBSX produced to have no killing activity on the sensitive strain W23. The xki mutation was separated from xhi by recombination.