This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Brown, E. W.
Right arrow Articles by Cebula, T. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Brown, E. W.
Right arrow Articles by Cebula, T. A.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Bacteriology, March 2001, p. 1631-1644, Vol. 183, No. 5
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.5.1631-1644.2001

Phylogenetic Evidence for Horizontal Transfer of mutS Alleles among Naturally Occurring Escherichia coli Strains

Eric W. Brown, J. Eugene LeClerc, Baoguang Li, William L. Payne, and Thomas A. Cebula*

Molecular Biology Branch, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, Washington, D.C. 20204

Received 3 October 2000/Accepted 30 November 2000

mutS mutators accelerate the bacterial mutation rate 100- to 1,000-fold and relax the barriers that normally restrict homeologous recombination. These mutators thus afford the opportunity for horizontal exchange of DNA between disparate strains. While much is known regarding the mutS phenotype, the evolutionary structure of the mutS+ gene in Escherichia coli remains unclear. The physical proximity of mutS to an adjacent polymorphic region of the chromosome suggests that this gene itself may be subject to horizontal transfer and recombination events. To test this notion, a phylogenetic approach was employed that compared gene phylogeny to strain phylogeny, making it possible to identify E. coli strains in which mutS alleles have recombined. Comparison of mutS phylogeny against predicted E. coli "whole-chromosome" phylogenies (derived from multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and mdh sequences) revealed striking levels of phylogenetic discordance among mutS alleles and their respective strains. We interpret these incongruences as signatures of horizontal exchange among mutS alleles. Examination of additional sites surrounding mutS also revealed incongruous distributions compared to E. coli strain phylogeny. This suggests that other regional sequences are equally subject to horizontal transfer, supporting the hypothesis that the 61.5-min mutS-rpoS region is a recombinational hot spot within the E. coli chromosome. Furthermore, these data are consistent with a mechanism for stabilizing adaptive changes promoted by mutS mutators through rescue of defective mutS alleles with wild-type sequences.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of Molecular Biology Research and Evaluation (HFS-235), Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, US Food & Drug Administration, 200 C Street SW, Washington, DC 20204. Phone: (202) 205-4217. Fax: (202) 401-1105. E-mail: tcebula{at}cfsan.fda.gov, tac{at}cfsan.fda.gov.

Journal of Bacteriology, March 2001, p. 1631-1644, Vol. 183, No. 5
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.5.1631-1644.2001


This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Lin, Z., Nei, M., Ma, H. (2007). The origins and early evolution of DNA mismatch repair genes multiple horizontal gene transfers and co-evolution. Nucleic Acids Res 35: 7591-7603 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Bhagwat, A. A., Chan, L., Han, R., Tan, J., Kothary, M., Jean-Gilles, J., Tall, B. D. (2005). Characterization of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli Strains Based on Acid Resistance Phenotypes. Infect. Immun. 73: 4993-5003 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Li, B., Brown, E. W., D'Agostino, C., LeClerc, J. E., Cebula, T. A. (2005). Structure and distribution of the phosphoprotein phosphatase genes, prpA and prpB, among Shigella subgroups. Microbiology 151: 2671-2683 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Meier, P., Wackernagel, W. (2005). Impact of mutS Inactivation on Foreign DNA Acquisition by Natural Transformation in Pseudomonas stutzeri. J. Bacteriol. 187: 143-154 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Watson, M. E. Jr, Burns, J. L., Smith, A. L. (2004). Hypermutable Haemophilus influenzae with mutations in mutS are found in cystic fibrosis sputum. Microbiology 150: 2947-2958 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Taoka, M., Yamauchi, Y., Shinkawa, T., Kaji, H., Motohashi, W., Nakayama, H., Takahashi, N., Isobe, T. (2004). Only a Small Subset of the Horizontally Transferred Chromosomal Genes in Escherichia coli Are Translated into Proteins. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 3: 780-787 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Levy, D. D., Sharma, B., Cebula, T. A. (2004). Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Mutation Spectra and Resistance to Quinolones in Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis with a Mutator Phenotype. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 48: 2355-2363 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Brown, E. W., Mammel, M. K., LeClerc, J. E., Cebula, T. A. (2003). Limited boundaries for extensive horizontal gene transfer among Salmonella pathogens. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100: 15676-15681 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hacker, J., Hentschel, U., Dobrindt, U. (2003). Prokaryotic Chromosomes and Disease. Science 301: 790-793 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Li, B., Tsui, H.-C. T., LeClerc, J. E., Dey, M., Winkler, M. E., Cebula, T. A. (2003). Molecular analysis of mutS expression and mutation in natural isolates of pathogenic Escherichia coli. Microbiology 149: 1323-1331 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Townsend, J. P., Nielsen, K. M., Fisher, D. S., Hartl, D. L. (2003). Horizontal Acquisition of Divergent Chromosomal DNA in Bacteria: Effects of Mutator Phenotypes. Genetics 164: 13-21 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hengge-Aronis, R. (2002). Signal Transduction and Regulatory Mechanisms Involved in Control of the {sigma}S (RpoS) Subunit of RNA Polymerase. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 66: 373-395 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Nesbo, C. L., Nelson, K. E., Doolittle, W. F. (2002). Suppressive Subtractive Hybridization Detects Extensive Genomic Diversity in Thermotoga maritima. J. Bacteriol. 184: 4475-4488 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Kotewicz, M. L., Li, B., Levy, D. D., LeClerc, J. E., Shifflet, A. W., Cebula, T. A. (2002). Evolution of multi-gene segments in the mutS-rpoS intergenic region of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2. Microbiology 148: 2531-2540 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • de Visser, J. A. G. M. (2002). The fate of microbial mutators. Microbiology 148: 1247-1252 [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»