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Journal of Bacteriology, February 1999, p. 1049-1053, Vol. 181, No. 3
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Sporadic Distribution of tRNA_CCU^Arg Introns among -Purple Bacteria: Evidence for Horizontal Transmission and Transposition of a Group I Intron

Bruno Paquin, Annette Heinfling, and David A. Shub^*

Department of Biological Sciences and Center for Molecular Genetics, University at AlbanySUNY, Albany, New York 12222

Received 8 June 1998/Accepted 17 November 1998

A group I intron interrupts the tRNA_CCU^Arg gene of the -purple bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens (B. Reinhold-Hurek and D. A. Shub, Nature [London] 357:173-176, 1992). In this study, we assess the distribution of the corresponding intron among 12 additional species of -purple bacteria. Of 10 newly identified tRNA_CCU^Arg genes, we found only two that contained an intron homologous to that of the Agrobacterium tRNA_CCU^Arg intron. This restricted and scattered distribution of the tRNA_CCU^Arg intron among -purple bacteria is consistent with a recent origin and horizontal transmission. Primary and secondary structural similarities between tRNA_UAA^Leu introns found in strains of the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa (K. Rudi and K. S. Jacobsen, FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 156:293-298, 1997) and -purple tRNA_CCU^Arg introns suggest that these introns share a more recent common ancestor than either does with other known cyanobacterial tRNA_UAA^Leu introns.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Sciences and Center for Molecular Genetics, University at AlbanySUNY, Albany, NY 12222. Phone: (518) 442-4324. Fax: (518) 442-4767. E-mail: shub{at}cnsunix.albany.edu.

Present address: Département de Biochimie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada.

Present address: FG Microbial Ecology, Technical University Berlin, D-10587 Berlin, Germany.

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Journal of Bacteriology, February 1999, p. 1049-1053, Vol. 181, No. 3
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

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