ABSTRACT
Youderian, P. and King J. (1981) J. Virology, 37, 976-986
New genes in the left arm of the bacteriophage ø80 Chromosome
We describe the isolation and partial genetic characterization of 247 amber (suppressor-sensitive) mutants of temperate bacteriophage ø80 of Escherichia coli. Of these 247 mutants, the mutations of 201 mapped to the left arm of the ø80 chromosome and the mutations of 39 mapped to the right arm of the genome. Complementation tests among these and previously described left arm mutants defined five additional genes in the left arm of the chromosome. The positions of these genes are consistent with the hypothesis that four of them represent functions essential for ø80 tail assembly and one represents a capsid assembly function, probably the major coat protein. The identification of these genes brings the ø80 genome into closer correspondence with the organization of the phage lambda genome. Two- and three-factor crosses performed between mutants with defects in each of the previously identified genes and mutants with defects in the five new genes allowed us to construct a consistent, roughly additive recombination map of the left arm of the bacteriophage ø80 genome.
