Construction of intergeneric conjugal transfer for molecular genetic studies of Streptomyces acidiscabies producing thaxtomin

Effective transformation procedure to facilitate molecular genetic studies of Streptomyces acidiscabies producing thaxtomin, which causes scab diseases in the economically important root and tuber crops was established via transconjugation from Escherichia coli ET12567 using an OC31-derived integration vector, pSET152, harboring the oriT and attP fragments. Greatest number of exconjugants was achieved on MS medium containing 50 mM MgCl2 without heat treatment of spores and E. coli cells. Additionally, the integration site, attB, of the genome of S. acidiscabies exhibited the highest degree of homology with S. avermitilis and its chromosomal location was found to exist as a single attB site within an open reading frame coding for a pirin homolog similar to those identified in other actinomycetes.