A Transducing Bacteriophage for Proteus rettgeri

Transducing phages are usually derived directly from lysogenic strains (Zinder & Lederberg, 1952; Lennox, 1955; Morse, Lederberg & Lederberg, 1956; Coetzee, de Klerk & Smit, 1967), but have been isolated from soil (Thorne, 1962; Takahashi, 1963) and sewage (Holloway & van de Putte, 1968). The incidence of lysogeny in Proteus rettgeri is reported as 0% (Tauebeneck, 1962), 22.7% (Coetzee, 1963) and 2.7% (Vieu, 1963). Phage active on P. rettgeri is readily isolated from sewage (Coetzee, 1963), and it was decided to try this source, as well as lysogenic strains, in a search for transducing phages for P. rettgeri.

The methods have been described (Coetzee & Sacks, 1960; Coetzee, 1963; Coetzee, Smit & Prozesky, 1966). One hundred and fifty recently isolated strains of Proteus rettgeri were treated with mitomycin C (Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co. Ltd, Tokyo) (Seaman, Tarmy & Marmur, 1964). The culture supernatants were sterilized with chloroform and spotted on all the strains.