High efficiency transduction of single strand plasmid DNA into enteric bacteria

Summary This report demonstrates high efficiency transduction of enteric bacteria using single strand plasmids packaged in M13 phage capsids. Transformation by plasmid DNA is usually a very inefficient process in many enteric bacteria other than Escherichia coli K12. Plasmids carrying an M13 origin of replication can be replicated and packaged when cells carrying such plasmids are infected with M13 or a derivative helper phage. By introducing an F plasmid into E. coli, Serratia marcescens, Citrobacter freundii, and Enterobacter aerogenes, these species can now be infected at high efficiency with M13 phage and with packaged single strand plasmids, yielding an efficient method to introduce cloned DNA fragments into these bacteria. The titer of colony forming units in a lysate was essentially equivalent in all the bacteria, demonstrating an equal efficiency of transduction of these other enteric bacteria compared to E. coli.