Spontaneous mutants of Salmonella typhimurium isolated in our laboratory from thiolutin-containing tryptone agar plates are partially resistant to thiolutin in enriched media. In minimal media, they are not resistant. The mutants are not temperature sensitive but fail to support the development of phage P22 at higher temperatures (40 degrees C). Thiolutin did not interfere with RNA polymerase or nucleotide kinase in in vitro experiments. However, thiolutin did inhibit the rate of incorporation of exogenous uridine into the cellular pool and consequently the acid-precipitable material. It appears that one site of action of thiolutin is at the membrane level.
Spontaneous mutants of S. typhimurium resistant to thiolutin are conditionally non-permissive for phage P22 development (Joshi and Chakravorty 1979). At 40 degree C non-infective phage particles are produced. Phage development in two nonpermissive hosts (18/MC4 and 153/MC4) has been studied in detail. The steps at which the phage morphogenesis is interfered with differ in the two mutants. The electron micrograph of the particles produced in the mutant 18/MC4 reveals the presence of normal-looking particles; these particles contain phage DNA, adsorb to the permissive host but fail to inject their DNA. The particles produced in the mutant 153/MC4 which fail to adsorb to the host are found to be tail fibre-less. These observations indicate the involvement of host protein(s) in phage P22 morphogenesis.
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