BIOL 205 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Rolling Circle Replication, Auxotrophy, Wild Type
4 Nov 2016
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Chapter 5 the genetics of bacteria and their viruses. Wildtype bacteria are prototrophic- means they can grow and divide on minimal medium, which is a substrate containing only inorganic salts, a carbon source for energy and water. From a prototrophic culture, auxotrophic mutants can be obtained: these mutants are cells that will not grow unless the medium contains one or more specific cellular building blocks such as adenine, threonine or biotin. The wildtype, lac+ can use lactose and grow whereas the mutant, lac-, cannot, Wildtypes are susceptible to an inhibitor, such as the antibiotic, streptomycin, resistant mutants can divide ad form colonies in the presence of the inhibitor. All these types of mutants allow geneticists to distinguish different individual strains, providing genetic markers to keep track of genomes and cells. One cell acts as a donor and the other as a recipient.
