Many human colonic Bacteroides spp. harbor a conjugative transposon, CTnDOT, which carries two antibiotic resistance genes, tetQ and ermF. A distinctive feature of CTnDOT is that its excision and transfer are stimulated by tetracycline. Regulation of the genes responsible for excision has been described previously. We provide here the first characterization of the regulation of CTnDOT transfer (tra) genes. Reverse transcription-PCR analysis of the region containing the tra genes showed that these genes are regulated at the transcriptional level. Surprisingly, increased production of tra gene mRNA in tetracycline-stimulated cells was mediated by the proteins encoded by the excision genes. Previous studies have shown that expression of the excision gene operon is controlled by the regulatory protein RteC. Accordingly, it was possible that RteC was also regulating tra gene expression and that the excision proteins were only accessory proteins. However, placing the excision gene operon under the control of a heterologous promoter showed that the excision proteins alone could activate tra gene expression and that RteC was not directly involved. We also found a second level of tra gene control. The transfer of CTnDOT was inhibited by a DNA segment that included only a portion of the 3' end of one of the excision genes (exc). This segment contained a small open reading frame, rteR. By replacing the codons encoding the first two amino acids of the putative protein product of this open reading frame with stop codons, we showed that the rteR gene might encode a small regulatory RNA. RteR acted in trans to reduce the number of tra transcripts in a way that was independent of the excision proteins. The repressive effect of RteR was not the result of decreased stability of the tra mRNA. Instead, RteR appears to be modulating the level of tra gene expression in some more direct fashion. The complex regulatory system that controls and links the expression of CTnDOT excision and transfer genes may be designed to ensure stable maintenance of CTnDOT in nature by reducing the fitness toll it takes on the cell that harbors it.

In vitro recombination techniques were used to construct a new cloning vehicle, pBR322. This plasmid, derived from pBR313, is a relaxed replicating plasmid, does not produce and is sensitive to colicin E1, and carries resistance genes to the antibiotics ampicillin (Ap) and tetracycline (Tc). The antibiotic-resistant genes on pBR322 are not transposable. The vector pBR322 was constructed in order to have a plasmid with a single PstI site, located in the ampicillin-resistant gene (Apr), in addition to four unique restriction sites, EcoRI, HindIII, BamHI and SalI. Survival of Escherichia coli strain X1776 containing pBR313 and pBR322 as a function of thymine and diaminopimelic acid (DAP) starvation and sensitivity to bile salts was found to be equivalent to the non-plasmid containing strain. Conjugal transfer of these plasmids in bi- and triparental matings were significantly reduced or undetectable relative to the plasmid ColE1.

In vitro recombination via restriction endonucleases and the in vivo genetic translocation of the Ap resistance (Apr) gene resulted in the construction of a new cloning vehicle, the plasmid pBR313. This vector was derived from a ColE1-like plasmid and, while it does not produce colicon E1, it still retains colicin E1 immunity. The Apr and tetracycline resistance (Tcr) markers carried in pBR313 were derived from the ampicillin transposon (TnA) of pRSF2124 and pSC101 respectively. During the construction of pBR313, the TnA component was altered and the Apr gene in pBR313 can no longer be translocated. This plasmid has a molecular weight of 5.8 Mdalton and has been characterized using thirteen restriction enzymes, six of which (EcoRI, SmaI, HpaI, HindIII, BamHI and SalI) cleave the plasmid at unique restriction sites. This allows the molecular cloning of DNA fragments generated by these six enzymes. The restriction sites for the latter three enzymes, HindIII, BamHI and SalI, are located in the Tcr gene(s). Cloning DNA fragments into these sites alters the expression of the Tcr mechanisms thus providing a selection for cells carrying recombinant plasmid molecules. An enrichment method for AprTcS cells carrying recombinant plasmid molecules is described.

During metamorphosis of Drosophila melanogaster, a cascade of morphological changes is triggered by the steroid hormone 20-OH ecdysone via the ecdysone receptor, a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily. In this report, we have transferred insect hormone responsiveness to mammalian cells by the stable expression of a modified ecdysone receptor that regulates an optimized ecdysone responsive promoter. Inductions reaching 4 orders of magnitude have been achieved upon treatment with hormone. Transgenic mice expressing the modified ecdysone receptor can activate an integrated ecdysone responsive promoter upon administration of hormone. A comparison of tetracycline-based and ecdysone-based inducible systems reveals the ecdysone regulatory system exhibits lower basal activity and higher inducibility. Since ecdysone administration has no apparent effect on mammals, its use for regulating genes should be excellent for transient inducible expression of any gene in transgenic mice and for gene therapy.

Control elements of the tetracycline-resistance operon encoded in Tn10 of Escherichia coli have been utilized to establish a highly efficient regulatory system in mammalian cells. By fusing the tet repressor with the activating domain of virion protein 16 of herpes simplex virus, a tetracycline-controlled transactivator (tTA) was generated that is constitutively expressed in HeLa cells. This transactivator stimulates transcription from a minimal promoter sequence derived from the human cytomegalovirus promoter IE combined with tet operator sequences. Upon integration of a luciferase gene controlled by a tTA-dependent promoter into a tTA-producing HeLa cell line, high levels of luciferase expression were monitored. These activities are sensitive to tetracycline. Depending on the concentration of the antibiotic in the culture medium (0-1 microgram/ml), the luciferase activity can be regulated over up to five orders of magnitude. Thus, the system not only allows differential control of the activity of an individual gene in mammalian cells but also is suitable for creation of "on/off" situations for such genes in a reversible way.

Chemical footprinting shows that several classes of antibiotics (streptomycin, tetracycline, spectinomycin, edeine, hygromycin and the neomycins) protect concise sets of highly conserved nucleotides in 16S ribosomal RNA when bound to ribosomes. These findings have strong implications for the mechanism of action of these antibiotics and for the assignment of functions to specific structural features of 16S rRNA.

Promoters whose temporal activity can be directly manipulated in transgenic animals provide a tool for the study of gene functions in vivo. We have evaluated a tetracycline-responsive binary system for its ability to temporally control gene expression in transgenic mice. In this system, a tetracycline-controlled trans-activator protein (tTA), composed of the repressor of the tetracycline-resistance operon (tet from Escherichia coli transposon Tn10) and the activating domain of viral protein VP16 of herpes simplex virus, induces transcription from a minimal promoter (PhCMV*-1; see below) fused to seven tet operator sequences in the absence of tetracycline but not in its presence. Transgenic mice were generated that carried either a luciferase or a beta-galactosidase reporter gene under the control of PhCMV*-1 or a transgene containing the tTA coding sequence under the control of the human cytomegalovirus immediate early gene 1 (hCMV IE1) promoter/enhancer. Whereas little luciferase or beta-galactosidase activity was observed in tissues of mice carrying only the reporter genes, the presence of tTA in double-transgenic mice induced expression of the reporter genes up to several thousand-fold. This induction was abrogated to basal levels upon administration of tetracycline. These findings can be used, for example, to design dominant gain-of-function experiments in which temporal control of transgene expression is required.

First-generation inducible expression vectors for Trypanosoma brucei utilized a single tetracycline-responsive promoter to drive expression of an experimental gene, in tandem with a drug-resistance marker gene to select for integration (Wirtz E, Clayton CE. Science 1995; 268:1179-1183). Because drug resistance and experimental gene expression both depended upon the activity of the regulated promoter, this approach could not be used for inducible expression of toxic products. We have now developed a dual-promoter approach, for expressing highly toxic products and generating conditional gene knock-outs, using back-to-back constitutive T7 and tetracycline-responsive PARP promoters to drive expression of the selectable marker and test gene, respectively. Transformants are readily obtained with these vectors in the absence of tetracycline, in bloodstream or procyclic T. brucei cell lines co-expressing T7 RNA polymerase and Tet repressor, and consistently show tetracycline-responsive expression through a 10(3)-10(4)-fold range. Uninduced background expression of a luciferase reporter averages no more than one molecule per cell, enabling dominant-negative approaches relying upon inducible expression of toxic products. This tight regulation also permits the production of functional gene knock-outs through regulated expression of an experimental gene in a null-mutant background.

We have constructed a cosmid derivative of the low copy-number broad host-range cloning vector pRK290 (Ditta et al., 1980) by inserting a 1.6-kb Bg/II fragment containing lambda cos into the unique Bg/II site in pRK290. The new vector, pLAFR1, is 21.6 kb long, confers tetracycline resistance, contains a unique EcoRI site, and can be mobilized into and stably replicates within many Gram-negative hosts. We constructed a clone bank of Rhizobium meliloti DNA in pLAFR1 using a partial EcoRI digest. The mean insert size was 23.1 kb. When the clone bank was mated (en masse) from Escherichia coli to various R. meliloti auxotrophic mutants, tetracycline-resistant (Tcr) transconjugants were obtained at frequencies ranging from 0.1 to 0.8, and among these, prototrophic colonies were obtained at frequencies ranging from 0.001 to 0.007. pLAFR1 cosmids were mobilized from R. meliloti prototrophic colonies into E. coli and then reintroduced into R. meliloti auxotrophs. In most cases, 100% of these latter Tcr transconjugants were prototrophic.

Vectors were constructed which contain promoterless genes for chloramphenicol (cam) or tetracycline (tet) resistance, as promoter-probe plasmids. Escherichia coli cells harboring these plasmids are sensitive to cam or tet but resistant to ampicillin. In plasmids pKK231 -1 and pKK232 -8 the gene for cam acetyltransferase (CAT) and in pKK175 -6 the gene for tet resistance are flanked by efficient transcription terminators, preventing transcription from other pBR322 promoters into the antibiotic resistance region. In one of the vectors, pKK232 -8, translational stop codons were introduced in all three reading frames upstream from the initiation codon of the cat gene. If a DNA fragment containing a promoter is inserted into one of the cloning sites upstream from the antibiotic genes, cells carrying such plasmids acquire resistance to cam or tet. Using these vectors two restriction fragments that contain promoters were identified. One of these fragments contains sequences upstream from an unidentified gene ( ORFII ) located distal to the rrnB rRNA operon of E. coli.