I N T R O D U C T I O NCertain plasmids increase ultraviolet (u.v.) resistance and spontaneous and u .v. mutagenesis in Salmonella typhimurium (Howarth, I 966; MacPhee, 1973 ;Mortelmans & Stocker, 1976). In Escherichia coli, thermally-induced expression of the tif-I mutation similarly causes enhancement of spontaneous and u.v.-induced mutagenesis (Witkin, I 974). The effects of both plasmid expression (MacPhee, 1973 ;Monti-Bragadin, Babudri & Samer, 1976) and tif-I expression (Castellazzi, George & Buttin, 1972) are r e d + dependent. In addition novel DNA synthesis characteristics are found in the presence of plasmids (MacPhee, 1974;Wilkins, 1975) and when t$r is expressed (Radman et al., 1976). These common features prompted us to examine the interaction between the plasmid and tif-1 effects in an attempt to decide whether or not they act through the same mechanism.
METHODS
Plasmid ~K M I O Iwas transferred from Salmonetla typhimurium TAIOO (McCann et al., 1975) into Escherichia coli W P~ uvvA trp (Hill, 1965) and its non-filamenting t$I sf; derivative WP&NF (Witkin, 1976) using ampicillin selection. Details of the mutation system of m 2 and its derivatives and general methods have been published elsewhere (Bridges et al., 1973). Selective plates for Trp' revertants contained Difco Casamino acids (0.4%, w/v). tryptophan (0.125pg ml-l) and adenine (75 pg ml-l), which has been shown to potentiate tif-1 mutability (Witkin I 974). Bacterial viability was determined by plating appropriate dilutions on the same medium.Exponentially growing cultures were obtained by diluting an overnight broth culture I :IOO into fresh nutrient broth and incubating at 32 "C. and their parental strains at 44 "C for several hours did not result in lethality. However, ~~9 0 1 , unlike the other strains, filamented at this temperature. This was attributed to the presence of the ~K M I O I plasmid, since acridine orange curing of ~~9 0 1 resulted in reversion to the non-filamenting properties of WP44sNF.In Fig. I, spontaneous mutation is plotted as a function of the period of incubation of plates at 44 "C. Strain W'p2 uvrA was unaffected by this treatment (data not shown). Strains
W P~~~N Fand cMgo I showed thermal enhancement of spontaneous mutability, although incubation of ~~9 0 1 for longer than 2 h resulted in a reduction in the number of additional mutants. This loss was presumed to relate to the plasmid, since spontaneous mutability of ~~8 9 1 was decreased by incubation at 44 "C ( Fig. I