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J. Bacteriol., 10 1995, 5943-5951, Vol 177, No. 20
SP Reddy, WG Rasmussen and JB Baseman
Adhesins and adhesin-related accessory proteins of pathogenic mycoplasmas
are required for cytadherence and the subsequent development of disease
pathology. The classic example has been Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes
primary atypical pneumonia in humans. Mutants of M. pneumoniae defective in
adhesins (P1 and P30) or in adherence-accessory proteins (HMW1 through
HMW4) are unable to colonize host tissues and are avirulent. Mycoplasma
genitalium, implicated in nongonococcal, nonchlamydial urethritis,
pneumonia, arthritis, and AIDS progression, was found to encode a 140-kDa
adhesin that shared both DNA and protein sequence similarities with P1, a
major adhesin of M. pneumoniae. In this report, we show that M. genitalium
possesses additional homolog sequences to well-characterized adherence-
related genes and proteins of M. pneumoniae. The M. genitalium homologs are
designated P32 and P69 and correspond to P30 and HMW3 of M. pneumoniae,
respectively (J. B. Baseman, p. 243-259, in S. Rottem and I. Kahane, ed.,
Subcellular biochemistry, vol. 20. Mycoplasma cell membranes, 1993, and D.
C. Krause, D. K. Leith, R. M. Wilson, and J. B. Baseman, Infect. Immun.
35:809-817, 1982). Interestingly, the operon- like organizations of P32 and
P69 in the M. genitalium genome are similar to the organizations of P30 and
HMW3 genes of M. pneumoniae, suggesting that the conservation of these
adherence-related genes and proteins might have occurred through horizontal
gene transfer events originating from an ancestral gene family.
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology
Molecular cloning and characterization of an adherence-related operon of Mycoplasma genitalium
Department of Microbiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio 78284-7758, USA.
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