DNA as a Nutrient: Novel Role for Bacterial Competence Gene Homologs

doi:10.1128/JB.183.21.6288-6293.2001

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Journal of Bacteriology, November 2001, p. 6288-6293, Vol. 183, No. 21
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.21.6288-6293.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

DNA as a Nutrient: Novel Role for Bacterial Competence Gene Homologs

Steven E. Finkel¹^,^* and Roberto Kolter²

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1340,¹ and Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115²

Received 5 April 2001/Accepted 7 August 2001

The uptake and stable maintenance of extracellular DNA, genetic transformation, is universally recognized as a major forcein microbial evolution. We show here that extracellular DNA, bothhomospecific and heterospecific, can also serve as the sole sourceof carbon and energy supporting microbial growth. Mutants unableto consume DNA suffer a significant loss of fitness during stationary-phasecompetition. In Escherichia coli, the use of DNA as a nutrientdepends on homologs of proteins involved in natural genetic competenceand transformation in Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria gonorrhoeae.Homologs of these E. coli genes are present in many members ofthe $gamma$ subclass of Proteobacteria, suggesting that the mechanismsfor consumption of DNA may have been widely conserved duringevolution.

^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Sciences, Program in Molecular Biology, SHS 172, Universityof Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1340. Phone: (213)821-1498. Fax: (213) 740-8631. E-mail: sfinkel{at}usc.edu.

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