Survival and alteration of the plasmid-containing microorganism Escherichia coli Z905/pPHL7 introduced into manmade closed aquatic microcosms Original Research Article

It has been demonstrated that the transgenic microorganism Escherichia coli Z905/pPHL7 (AprLux+) can exist for a long time at an elevated concentration of mineral salts. The microorganism was introduced into microcosms with sterile brackish water (salinity variable from 21 to 22 gl−1) taken from Lake Shira (Khakasia, Russia). The survival of the microorganism was estimated both by measuring the growth of the colonies on solid nutrient media and by the bioluminescence exhibited by the transgenic strain in samples from the microcosms and in the enrichment culture with the added selective factor - ampicillin (50 μg/ml). In the enrichment culture, the bioluminescent signal was registered through the 160-day experiment. It has been shown that in the closed microcosms with brackish water the E. coli strain becomes heterogeneous in its ampicillin resistance. The populations of the transgenic strain were mainly represented by isolates able to persist in the medium containing 50 μg/ml, but there were also the cells (about 10%) with the threshold of ampicillin resistance not more than 0.05 μg/ml. Thus, it was shown that in the microcosms with brackish water and in the absence of the selective factor the transgenic strain survives and retails the recombinant plasmid.