In vivo transposon mutagenesis in Haemophilus influenzae

In order to devise an in vivo insertion mutagenesis scheme for Haemophilus influenzae, a novel set of transposons has been constructed. These are Tn10-based minitransposons carried on pACYC184- and pACYC177-based replicons, which are suitable for in vivo transposition in H. influenzae. The transposon delivery system was designed to contain an H. influenzae-specific uptake signal sequence which facilitates DNA transformation into H. influenzae. The following mini-Tn10 elements have been made suitable for specific tasks in H. influenzae: (i) Tn10d-cat, which can be used to generate chloramphenicol-selectable insertion mutations; (ii) Tn10d-bla, an ampicillin-selectable translational fusion system allowing the detection of membrane or secreted proteins; and (iii) Tn10d-lacZcat, a chloramphenicol-selectable lacZ transcriptional fusion system. For the rapid identification of the transposon insertions, a PCR fragment enrichment method was developed. This report demonstrates that this in vivo mutagenesis technique is a convenient tool for the analysis of biochemical and regulatory pathways in the human pathogen H. influenzae.