Process of producing highly transformable bacterial cells and cells produced thereby

Abstract

The invention provided herein includes gram negative bacteria cells containing a gene encoding an enzyme with carbohydrate degrading activity that had been rendered competent to transformation. Carbohydrate degrading enzymes of interest for use in the invention include alpha-amylase. The competent cells of the subject invention may be frozen so as to provide for prolonged storage. Other aspects of the invention include methods for rendering gram negative bacterial cells, such as E. coli cells competent to transformation. These methods involve the step of transferring a gene encoding an enzyme with carbohydrate degrading activity into E. coli cells and subsequently rendering the cells competent using any of a variety of competency inducing procedures.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.