Two classes of Bacillus subtilis mutants deficient in the adaptive response to simple alkylating agents

Six mutant strains of Bacillus subtilis hypersensitive to N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) were shown to be deficient in the adaptive response to MNNG and termed ada mutants (Morohoshi and Munakata 1985). All the mutations mapped between the attSPO2 and lin loci on the chromosome. The mutant and wild-type (ada+) cells contained similar constitutive levels of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase activity. Pretreatment with low concentrations of MNNG increased the activity about nine-fold in the ada+ cells, while it uniformly decreased the activity in the ada cells. The pretreatment of three mutants (ada-3, ada-4, and ada-6) as well as ada+, augumented the activity of methylpurine-DNA glycosylase and rendered the cells resistant to the lethal and mutagenic effects of N-propyl- or N-butyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine. With the rest of the mutant strains (ada-1, ada-2, and ada-5), neither of such responses was elicited by the pretreatment. Thus, the former ada strains seem to have a defect in the gene specifically involved in the induction of the methyltransferase, while the latter ada strains have a defect in the gene controlling the adaptive response as a whole.