The causes of instability of linkage in transformation of Bacillus subtilis
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TL;DR
To explain the instability of linkage between distantly situated markers in transformation of B. subtilis, the following proposal, and experimental evidence to support it, are presented.
Abstract
To explain the instability of linkage between distantly situated markers in transformation of B. subtilis, the following proposal, and experimental evidence to support it, are presented. When cells are transformed with low concentrations of DNA, any molecule can interact simultaneously with more than one recipient cell. This results in a fragmentation of the molecules, which can separate genetic markers initially coresident on the same molecule into different recipient cells. The frequency with which this occurs depends on the concentration of DNA, concentration of recipient cells, the competence of the culture and the distance between the markers. When markers are close together, only rarely does the break in the molecules occur between them and the linkage is stable at all concentrations of DNA; when markers are far apart, division often occurs between them and the major protion of the linkage is lost at all but saturating levels of DNA.