I am looking for mutant strains of lambda phage that are virulent or strictly lytic. I know there are various mutations that achieve this but can't find any available on ATCC. Does anyone work with these or know how to obtain them preferably from a source in the USA?
Thanks!
Binyamin Kerman there are lots and lots of such mutants of phage lambda that should be easily obtainable from many labs in the US doing E.coli genetics or phage work. I haven't checked whether or not ATCC has them or not.
So the typical non-lysogenizing lambda mutants are callled clear mutants, cI or cII or cIII. Mutants in cI are the cleanest since that is the major repressor in lysogen. These are easily found mutants because they form clear plaques instead of turbid plaques. The most commonly used cI mutant is cI857 that is temperature sensitive, but you probably want a null mutant.
Virulent mutants are different, called lambda vir. These can be found because they form plaques on a lambda lysogen host. They can be easily found, just start with a stable lambda lysogen and plate a good high titer stock of phage on it and look for any plaques. They should appear with reasonable frequency if using undiluted phage stock. Again lots of labs should also have these mutants.
Lastly, many lambda cloning vectors were actually contracted with deletions or mutations in the cI gene so can be easily obtained.
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