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Journal of Bacteriology, April 2009, p. 2764-2775, Vol. 191, No. 8
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01412-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Conjugative Transfer of the Integrative Conjugative Elements ICESt1 and ICESt3 from Streptococcus thermophilus{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Xavier Bellanger,1 Adam P. Roberts,2 Catherine Morel,1 Frédéric Choulet,1,{ddagger} Guillaume Pavlovic,1,§ Peter Mullany,2 Bernard Decaris,1 and Gérard Guédon1*

Laboratoire de Génétique et Microbiologie UMR INRA-UHP 1128, IFR110, Nancy-Université, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France,1 Division of Microbial Diseases, UCL Eastman Dental Institute, University College London, United Kingdom2

Received 8 October 2008/ Accepted 23 January 2009

Integrative and conjugative elements (ICEs), also called conjugative transposons, are genomic islands that excise, self-transfer by conjugation, and integrate in the genome of the recipient bacterium. The current investigation shows the intraspecies conjugative transfer of the first described ICEs in Streptococcus thermophilus, ICESt1 and ICESt3. Mitomycin C, a DNA-damaging agent, derepresses ICESt3 conjugative transfer almost 25-fold. The ICESt3 host range was determined using various members of the Firmicutes as recipients. Whereas numerous ICESt3 transconjugants of Streptococcus pyogenes and Enterococcus faecalis were recovered, only one transconjugant of Lactococcus lactis was obtained. The newly incoming ICEs, except the one from L. lactis, are site-specifically integrated into the 3' end of the fda gene and are still able to excise in these transconjugants. Furthermore, ICESt3 was retransferred from E. faecalis to S. thermophilus. Recombinant plasmids carrying different parts of the ICESt1 recombination module were used to show that the integrase gene is required for the site-specific integration and excision of the ICEs, whereas the excisionase gene is required for the site-specific excision only.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratoire de Génétique et Microbiologie UMR INRA-UHP 1128, IFR110, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Nancy-Université, BP 239, 54506 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France. Phone: (33) 03 83 68 42 06. Fax: (33) 03 83 68 11 76. E-mail: guedon{at}nancy.inra.fr

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 30 January 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

{ddagger} Present address: INRA-Université Blaise Pascal, UMR 1095 Genetics Diversity and Ecophysiology of Cereals, Clermont-Ferrand, France.

§ Present address: Institut Clinique de la Souris, Illkirch, France.

Journal of Bacteriology, April 2009, p. 2764-2775, Vol. 191, No. 8
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01412-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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