Journal of Bacteriology, April 2000, p. 2043-2047, Vol. 182, No. 7
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Division of Geographic Medicine/Infectious Diseases, New England Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02111
Received 25 October 1999/Accepted 7 January 2000
The Vibrio cholerae SXT element encodes resistance to multiple antibiotics and is a conjugative, self-transmissible, and chromosomally integrating element (a constin). Excision and self-transfer of the SXT element require an element-encoded integrase. We now report that the SXT element can also mobilize the plasmids RSF1010 and CloDF13 in trans as well as chromosomal DNA in an Hfr-like manner. SXT element-mediated mobilization of plasmids and chromosomal DNA, unlike its self-transfer, is not dependent upon excision of the element from the chromosome. These results raise the possibility that the SXT element and other constins play a general role in horizontal gene transfer among gram-negative bacteria.
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