April 21, 1951

Dear Nancy:

To answer your question about “large bodies" and recombination in
E. coli- the thought has occurred to a good many people. Dienes gave
a paper at Cold Spring Harbor in 1946 on the formation of large bodies
at the intersection of different strains of proteus. mts engendered
a good deal more excitement than turned out £3 be warranted, at least
as far as recombination or sexuality evidence is concerned.

So far, we have found no indication of the participation of any
but ordinary bacterial cells in recombination in K-12. However, Norton
Zinder is running into something in Salmonella typhimuriua which
argues quite differently, and which will probably put some substance
into the mooted questions of filtrable forms of bacteria. He haa some
evidence of the occurrence of reduced cells which are more resistant
to heat and antiseptics, and which remain dormant in apparently sterile
filtrates. These possibly originate from the disruption of "large bodies".
They may act as "gametes", or may initiate clones with the genetic
markers of the original bacteria, when stimlated to grow by the pre-

gence of other growing cells. fihat is the filtrability situation in
Azotobacter?

Since this is business stationery, I can't gery well give Alan and
you our beat, nor our commiserations about the Okie Oath. What are your
latest plans for your visit?

To change the subject again, the UW Press is fairly sure the reprint

collection won't be out in Bime for courses this summer, but we hope to

have it out for the fall. I'm sorry about this, but there are the usual
shortages and delays,

Sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg