Isolation and Characterizaton of Plasmids from Streptomyces

Streptomyces spp. purchased from American Type Culture Collection and Institute for Fermentation in Osaka, and donated from Northem Regional Research Laboratory, and those isolated from soil samples were assayed to isolate many plasmids harboring streptomycetes. Among these qrganisms, 5 small size-plasmid carrying organisms SNUS 8810-597A, 8810-600, 8810-754, 8811-344, and 8811-347 were characterized and their plasmids pSJ597, pSJ600, pSJ754, pSJ344, and pSJ347 were isolated in a large scale. The plasmid harboring organisms were sensitive to neomycin, kanamycin, gentamicin, and thiostreptone, but some of them showed weak or strong resistance against streptomycin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and tetracycline. It was confirmed that pSJ597 and pSJ600 do not carry antibiotic biosynthetic genes. pSJ600 showed a pock-forming character.