Variety of hybrid characters among recombinants obtained by interspecific protoplast fusion in streptomycetes

To discover whether the protoplast fusion method is useful or not for interspecific breeding, some methods were devised, and the appearance of various hybrids with different characters and the change of antibiotic activities in the recombinants obtained by the protoplast fusion were investigated. The purification of protoplasts, the choice of parental natural characters as selection markers, and the adoption of a replica method for selecting all types of recombinants were devised and used for these experiments, Protoplast fusion was done between S. griseus KCC S-0644 and each strain of 5 species that were clearly different species from S. griseus, in addition to being streptomycin sensitive (SM(s)) and capable of L-arabinose utilization for growth (Ara(+)). Recombinants (SM(r), Ara(+)) obtained by protoplast fusion displayed a great variety of hybrids in their taxonomic characters, e.g., 21 recombinant strains obtained by the cross between S. griseus and S. griseoruber consisted of 14 types of hybrids. Antibiotic productivity was examined in all recombinants obtained. Although both parental species produced their respective antibiotics, 60% of the recombinants did not produce any antibiotic and 24% produced different antibiotics from those of their parents. Among those recombinants, it was also found that the distribution of the productivity of each antibiotic among the recombinants was entirely different from that of the allelo-character in each taxonomic feature.