Isolation and characterization of a mercury-resistant broad-host-range plasmid from Pseudomonas cepacia

Abstract

A plasmid which codifies a mercury resistant phenotype was isolated from Pseudomonas cepacia. Evidence was obtained for conjugative transfer of the mercury resistant phenotype to a P. putida strain. The plasmid (termed pAMJ6) was transferred by conjugation and transformation to various enterobacterial strains and also mobilized from them. In all conjugant and transformant strains it was possible to recover plasmid pAMJ6. This plasmid seems to belong to the Inc-P1 group.