Construction of shuttle vectors for cloning in Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli.

Starting from a naturally occurring cryptic plasmid pVC540 of Vibrio cholerae non-OI. strain 1095, a number of plasmid vectors have been constructed for cloning genes in Vibrio cholerae by introducing antibiotic resistance markers containing a set of unique cloning sites. The constructs pVC810 and pVE920 have the origins of both Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli replicons and are stable in both organisms in the absence of selective pressure. These plasmids can serve as shuttle vectors between Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae. The plasmid vectors reported here along with the demonstration of transformation in Vibrio cholerae by plasmid DNA will facilitate genetic analysis of this important human pathogen.