The delayed early gene G23 of temperate mycobacteriophage L1 regulates the expression of deoxyribonuclease, the product of another delayed early gene of the phage.

To get clues about the genes as well as the gene regulatory circuit controlling the lytic development of temperate mycobacteriophage L1, previously we screened several conditional lethal mutants of L1 and characterized some of them to an extent. One of the mutants, L1 G23ts23, was found defective in both growth and late gene transcription at 42 degrees C but not at 32 degrees C. Here we show that the above phage mutant is also defective in the expression of phage-coded deoxyribonuclease (DNase) at 42 degrees C but not at 32 degrees C. The G23 gene however does not code for the above enzyme. Further analyses using the L1 G23ts23 mutant suggest that synthesis of DNase is also not regulated by G23 at transcriptional level. Expression of functional DNase in fact requires de novo protein synthesis. Among the 25 revertants isolated from the L1 G23ts23 mutant, which are capable of growing at 42 degrees C (by overcoming the ts defect in late transcription), two, R4 and R22, have been shown to retain the ts defect in the expression of the above enzyme and R4, to retain also the G23ts23 mutation. This suggests that R4 (R22 was not tested for the presence of G23ts23 mutation) carries an extragenic suppressor of G23ts23 mutation in a different gene (we call this putative gene as Gx), which now helps bypass the requirement of G23 for late gene transcription. Possible role of G23 on the regulation of L1-coded Gx and deoxyribonuclease has been discussed at length.