Transformation of Lactobacillus plantarum with the plasmid pTV1 by electroporation

Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014 was transformed with pTV1 by electroporation using a modification of a procedure described for Escherichia coli. The plasmid pTV1 which contains the pE194 replicon from Staphylococcus aureus and transposon Tn917 from Streptococcus faecalis was shown to replicate as a high copy number plasmid in L. plantarum, and the two encoded antibiotic resistance traits were expressed. Tn917 transposed with a high frequency into plasmid DNA of L. plantarum as shown by restriction enzyme analysis and Southern hybridization studies. There are no previous reports on transposition in the lactobacilli. This system may prove to be an important tool in further work on the genetics of these organisms.