Genetic Transformation System for a Psychrotrophic Deep-sea Bacterium: Isolation and Characterization of a Psychrotrophic Plasmid

A versatile system that permits genetic manipulation of a psychrotrophic deep-sea bacterium, Pseudoalteromonas sp. PS1M3, has been developed. A cryptic indigenous plasmid, pPS1M3, of 3.1 kb from the above strain was isolated and characterized. The nucleotide sequence analysis of plasmid pPS1M3 revealed the presence of one open reading frame, and its deduced amino acid sequence was identified as the essential protein for plasmid maintenance. Transformation with the pPS1M3 harboring antibiotic resistance genes by electroporation was fully successful using the pPS1M3-cured strain as a host. This plasmid was quite stable under nonselective culture conditions for about 100 generations at 4°C. The copy number of this plasmid in the cell was about 5 copies per chromosome. Received May 30, 2000; accepted October 11, 2000.