4 NEW DERIVATIVES OF THE BROAD-HOST-RANGE CLONING VECTOR PBBR1MCS, CARRYING DIFFERENT ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE CASSETTES

Four new antibiotic-resistant derivatives of the broad-host-range (bhr ) cloning vector pBBR1MCS have been constructed, These new plasmids ha ve several advantages over many of the currently available bhr vectors in that: (i) they are relatively small (<5.3 kb), (ii) they possess a n extended multiple cloning site (MCS), (iii) they allow direct select ion of recombinant plasmid molecules in Escherichia coli via disruptio n of the LacZ alpha peptide, (iv) they are mobilizable when the RK2 tr ansfer functions are provided in trans and (v) they are compatible wit h IncP, IncQ and IncW group plasmids, as well as with ColE1- and P15a- based replicons.