An Improved Transposon for the Halophilic Archaeon Haloarcula hispanica

An improved transposon (ThD73) for Haloarcula hispanica is described. Based on the halobacterial insertion sequence ISH28, it showed little target sequence specificity but was biased toward a lower G+C content. Twenty randomly selected ThD73 mutants were analyzed, and the DNA flanking their insertions revealed several recognizable sequences, including two (unrelated) ISH elements.