Effect of excessive cadmium chloride on the plasmids of E. coli HB101 in vivo

After Escherichia coli HB101 with plasmid pWH58, pWH98, or pTBa₅ were cultered respectively in amp LB broth which contained 50 mg/L CdCl₂ constantly for 24h, these plasmids were isolated from E. coli, and the effect of excessive CdCl₂ on the E. coli HB101 and plasmid DNA was studied by surveying the growth of E. coli HB101 and plasmid, argarose gel electrophoresis and analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of plasmids, and plasmid transformation. The results showed that 50 mg/L CdCl₂ treatment lagged the growth of E. coli HB101 for at least 4h, but after grown for 24h there were not significant differences in the growths of E. coli HB101s and the productions of plasmids between the treatment and control. These results implified that E. coli HB101 have induced adaptability to cadmium stress and excessive CdCl₂ did not inhibit the replication and amp + genes expression of plasmid DNA in vivo of E. coli significantly. 50 mg/L CdCl₂ treatment for 24 hours might cause the sequences change of plasmid DNA, but could not lead to the random breakage of plasmid DNA strands. Moreover, after 50 mg/L of CdCl₂ treatment in vivo the transformation activities of plasmid did not altered, implied excessive CdCl₂ could not affect the superhelical structure of plasmid and also not break the loop of plasmid DNA evidently.