Table 2-3. Acid production, aldehyde production, growth on minimal PD media, and polyhedra production in a subset of TPOP insertion mutation strains.
        Relevant    Approx.     Growth    Aldehyde     Acid           Polyhedra
Strain              location of
        Genotype    TPOpa       on PD     production   production     production
LT2     wild type  N/A          +         +            +              +
BE33    pduA        bp 2605               +/_          +/pdu operon
BE37    pduA        bp 2367      _        +
                   pdu operon
BE38    pduB        bp 2978     +/_       +/_          +
                   pdu operon
BE34    pduC        bp 5021                _           +/_            +
                   pdu operon
BE35    pduC        bp 4616                _           +/pdu operon
a0 bp is the start of the pocR gene. N/A, not applicable.

and observed using electron microscopy. No polyhedral organelles were observed in cells of strains BE33 and BE37, which contained TPOP insertions in thepduA gene. Likewise, no polyhedra were observed in strain BE38 containing a TPOP insertion in the pduB gene. When strains BE34- BE36 containing TPOP insertions in thepduC gene were examined, no polyhedra were observed in cells of strain BE35 or BE36; however, cells of strain BE34 appeared to still be capable of forming polyhedral organelles. The TPOP insertion in this strain mapped further downstream in thepduC gene than that in strain BE35 suggesting that the C-terminus of the PduC protein is not required for polyhedral organelle formation.

Complementation of the Polyhedra Organelle-Negative Phenotype of pduA and pduB TPOP Insertion Mutants

       Strain GH4 was constructed by moving plasmid, pTA749 (plac22-pduA), into

 strain BE33 containing a TPOP1 insertion in thepduA gene. To determine whether the pduA gene present on the plasmid could complement the pduA: :TPOP1 1 for polyhedral