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Determining the optimal thymidine concentration for growing Thy- Escherichia coli strains
F Molina1, A Jiménez-Sánchez, E C Guzmán
1Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y Genética, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Extremadura, E-06080 Badajoz, Spain.
Abstract:
Changes of thymidine concentration in the growth medium affect the chromosome replication time of Thy- strains without at the same time causing a detectable difference in the growth rate (R. H. Pritchard and A. Zaritsky, Nature 226:126-131, 1970). Consequently, the optimal thymidine concentration cannot be determined by ascertaining which concentration produces the highest growth rate. Here we present a method for determining the optimal thymidine concentration of any Thy- Escherichia coli strain. Using this method, we found that the E. coli "wild-type" strain MG1655 has a partial Thy- phenotype.
