How to Cite
Abstract
OmpA is an abundant outer membrane protein in Escherichia coli that has been shown to play an important role in bacterial conjugation by maintaining membrane stability. Previous experiments have looked at the effect of high-level ompA expression on conjugation efficiency but these vector systems were limited to uncontrolled and nondifferential increases in expression. The proposed pBAD24- OmpA construct was a more suitable system because it would allow for a range of ompA to be expressed and be tested in conjugation efficiency studies. In this study, the proposed construct was created but transformants from electroporation could not be recovered possibly because an insufficient quantity of the construct in the conformation that was favourable for efficient transformation. However, it is likely that by using an elevated quantity of the construct to increase the likelihood of generating a circular construct and by improving the transformation efficiency of the system, transformants carrying the pBAD24- OmpA can be recovered to assess conjugation efficiencies over a range of ompA levels.