Isolation of recombinants between T7 and T3 bacteriophages and their use in vitro transcriptional mapping

A variety of T3 X T7 recombinants were isolated from crosses between T3 and T7 parental phages carrying amber markers in various genes (gene 1 to gene 19). The genetic constitution of these recombinants was determined by reference to the selected markers and also directly by analysis of the proteins translated from the T3 X T7 recombinants in vivo. Although T3 and TM phages are closely related, most T3 and T7 proteins differ slightly in size, and hence the genetic origin of a gene can be determined by protein analysis. The major transcripts read by T3 and T7 RNA polymerases from T3 X T7 recombinant phage DNAs vary, depending on which regions of the T3 or T7 chromosome are present. T7 RNA polymerase is unable to utilize major promoter sites employed by T3 polymerase at an appreciable rate, and the converse is also true. Hence the transcriptional pattern for a recombinant phage DNA obtained with the T3 or T7 polymerase allows a determination of the identity of the different promoter sites on the genome. The transcriptional analysis of T3 X T7 recombinant DNAs together with earlier observations has been used to map the promoter sites for five out of seven major T3 and T7 RNA species on the genetic maps of T3 and T7. The promoter sites for the T7 and T3 RNA species IIIa, IV, and V originate at the beginning of genes 7, 9, and 10, respectively; the promoter sites for the T7 and T3 RNA species I and II are located to the left of gene 11 and gene 13, respectively. No T3 X T7 recombinants were found for which the specificity of the phage RNA polymerase was not correlated with the corresponding promoter sites for species IIIa and I (the transcription of which covers 60% of the genome). That means that the RNA polymerase specified by the recombinant genome is able to read all of the information encoded in sequences read normally from major promoters by the enzyme on the wild-type phage genome. This suggests that the in vitro specificity for promoter site selection by the phage polymerases is also maintained in vivo.