EcoRI (or XbaI) and HindIII (or SphI) recognition sites were introduced upstream and downstream of the constructs, respectively. Upstream flanking regions were amplified from the selleck compound genomic DNA of V. harveyi BB120. gfptet mTOR inhibitor review R was amplified from pBAD24gfptet R (constructed for this work by fusing the promoter-less gfpmut3[56] from pBAD24gfp[52] to tet R with a constitutive promoter amplified from pLAFRII [57], in pBAD24). In all plasmids

the start codon of gfp replaced the start codon of the original gene. All PCR fragments were restricted with suitable restriction enzymes and ligated into the similarly treated vector pBAD24. Plasmid structures were verified by sequencing prior to transformation of E. coli BW29427. The transformants were then used for mating. Construction of fluorescent Vibrio harveyi strains To introduce the plasmids containing promoter::gfp fusions driven by the recA, luxC, vscP, luxS and vhp promoters into V. harveyi, a modified protocol for conjugation of V. harveyi[7] based on biparental filter mating was used. Mating was achieved

by mixing stationary phase cultures Tanespimycin in vivo (diluted to OD600 = 0.6) of E. coli BW29427, carrying the tra genes (for conjugation) on the genome and one of the donor plasmids pCA1, pCA2, pCA3, pCA4, and pCA5 with the recipient V. harveyi BB120 (or JAF78) at a ratio of 1:4 (donor to recipient). The mixtures (500 μl volume) were incubated on micropore (45 μm) filters (Millipore) on LM agar plates supplemented with diaminopimelic acid (1 mM) at 30°C for three days. The mixed cultures were then resuspended in 1 ml of LM medium supplemented with tetracycline (12 μg*mL-1) and incubated at 30°C with aeration for 1 h. Selection of transconjugant V. harveyi cells was carried out on LM plates containing tetracycline 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (12 μg*mL-1) and polymyxin

B (10 μg*mL-1) at 30°C overnight. Polymyxin B was added to prevent growth of E. coli cells. A chromosomal inserted gfp fusion was generated in strain BB120 using the mini-Tn7 transposon system (using plasmid pBK-miniTn7 gfp3), which leads to an insertion downstream of glmS (encoding a glucosamine-6-phosphate activated ribozyme) via homologous recombination [50]. The insertion was verified by control PCR and subsequent sequencing. Single cell fluorescence and bioluminescence microscopy To measure promoter activity of P luxC ::gfp, P luxS ::gfp, P vscP ::gfp, P vhp ::gfp, and P recA ::gfp in individual cells, V. harveyi BB120 (or JAF78) cells conjugated with one of the donor plasmids were cultivated in LM medium supplemented with tetracycline (12 μg*mL-1) in Erlenmeyer flasks on a rotary shaker at 30°C overnight.