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Journal of Bacteriology, May 2004, p. 3086-3096, Vol. 186, No. 10
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.10.3086-3096.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Instability of Pathogenicity Islands in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli 536

Institut für Molekulare Infektionsbiologie, Universität Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany

Received 5 December 2003/ Accepted 28 January 2004

The uropathogenic Escherichia coli strain 536 carries at least five genetic elements on its chromosome that meet all criteria characteristic of pathogenicity islands (PAIs). One main feature of these distinct DNA regions is their instability. We applied the so-called island-probing approach and individually labeled all five PAIs of E. coli 536 with the counterselectable marker sacB to evaluate the frequency of PAI-negative colonies under the influence of different environmental conditions. Furthermore, we investigated the boundaries of these PAIs. According to our experiments, PAI II₅₃₆ and PAI III₅₃₆ were the most unstable islands followed by PAI I₅₃₆ and PAI V₅₃₆, whereas PAI IV₅₃₆ was stable. In addition, we found that deletion of PAI II₅₃₆ and PAI III₅₃₆ was induced by several environmental stimuli. Whereas excision of PAI I₅₃₆, PAI II₅₃₆, and PAI V₅₃₆ was based on site-specific recombination between short direct repeat sequences at their boundaries, PAI III₅₃₆ was deleted either by site-specific recombination or by homologous recombination between two IS100-specific sequences. In all cases, deletion is thought to lead to the formation of nonreplicative circular intermediates. Such extrachromosomal derivatives of PAI II₅₃₆ and PAI III₅₃₆ were detected by a specific PCR assay. Our data indicate that the genome content of uropathogenic E. coli can be modulated by deletion of PAIs.

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