A derivative of Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2155 that lacks the duplicated chromosomal region

SummaryThe genome of Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2155 contains a 56 kb duplicated region. We isolated a mutant of mc2155 lacking this duplication (ΔDRKIN). This mutation did not affect the growth rate, surface properties or transformation efficiency of the organism, confirming the potential utility of ΔDRKIN for the study of genes contained within the duplicated region.