Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Bacteriology, November 2001, p. 6654-6661, Vol. 183, No. 22
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department
of Medicine, New York University School of
Medicine,1 and Department of
Veterans Affairs Medical Center,4 New York, New
York; Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville,
Tennessee2; and Department of
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medical College of Georgia,
Augusta, Georgia3
Received 16 April 2001/Accepted 31 August 2001
Campylobacter fetus cells possess multiple
promoterless sap homologs, each capable of expressing a
surface layer protein (SLP) by utilizing a unique promoter present on a
6.2-kb invertible element. Each sap homolog includes a
626-bp 5' conserved region (FCR) with 74 bp upstream and 552 bp within
the open reading frame. After DNA inversion, the splice is seamless
because the FCRs are identical. In mutant strain 23D:ACA2K101, in which
sapA and sapA2 flanking the invertible
element in opposite orientations were disrupted by promoterless
chloramphenicol resistance (Cmr) and kanamycin resistance
(Kmr) cassettes, respectively, the frequency of DNA
inversion is 100-fold lower than that of wild-type strain 23D. To
define the roles of a 15-bp inverted repeat (IR) and a Chi-like site
(CLS) in the FCR, we mutagenized each upstream of sapA2
in 23D:ACA2K101 by introducing NotI and
KpnI sites to create strains
23D:ACA2K101N and 23D:ACA2K101K,
respectively. Alternatively selecting colonies for Cmr or
Kmr showed that mutagenizing the IR or CLS had no apparent
effect on the frequency of the DNA inversion. However, mapping the
unique NotI or KpnI site in relation to
the Cmr or Kmr cassette in the cells that
changed phenotype showed that splices occurred both upstream and
downstream of the mutated sites. PCR and sequence analyses also showed
that the splice could occur in the 425-bp portion of the FCR downstream
of the cassettes. In total, these data indicate that C.
fetus can use multiple sites within the FCR for its
sap-related DNA inversion.
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.22.6654-6661.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Campylobacter fetus Uses Multiple Loci for DNA
Inversion within the 5' Conserved Regions of
sap Homologs
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, 550 First Ave., New York, NY 10016. Phone: (212) 263-6394. Fax: (212) 263-7700. E-mail: martin.blaser{at}med.nyu.edu.
This article has been cited by other articles:
| Appl. Environ. Microbiol. | Infect. Immun. | Eukaryot. Cell |
|---|---|---|
| Mol. Cell. Biol. | J. Virol. | Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. |
| ALL ASM JOURNALS |