Previous Article | Next Article 
Journal of Bacteriology, December 2000, p. 7014-7020, Vol. 182, No. 24
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
pING Family of Conjugative Plasmids from the
Extremely Thermophilic Archaeon Sulfolobus islandicus:
Insights into Recombination and Conjugation in Crenarchaeota
Kenneth M.
Stedman,1,
Qunxin
She,2
Hien
Phan,2
Ingelore
Holz,1
Harpreet
Singh,1
David
Prangishvili,1,
Roger
Garrett,2 and
Wolfram
Zillig1,*
Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie,
D-82152 Martinsried, Germany,1 and
Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen K,
Sølvgade 83H, DK-1307 Copenhagen K, Denmark2
Received 17 April 2000/Accepted 21 September 2000
A novel family of conjugative plasmids from Sulfolobus
comprising the active variants pING1, -4, and -6 and the functionally defective variants pING2 and -3, which require the help of an active
variant for spreading, has been extensively characterized both
functionally and molecularly. In view of the sparse similarity between
bacterial and archaeal conjugation and the lack of a practical genetic
system for Sulfolobus, we compared the functions and
sequences of these variants and the previously described archaeal
conjugative plasmid pNOB8 in order to identify open reading frames
(ORFs) and DNA sequences that are involved in conjugative transfer and maintenance of these plasmids in Sulfolobus. The variants
pING4 and -6 are reproducibly derived from pING1 in vivo by successive transpositions of an element from the Sulfolobus genome.
The small defective but mobile variants pING2 and -3, which both lack a cluster of highly conserved ORFs probably involved in plasmid transfer,
were shown to be formed in vivo by recombinative deletion of the larger
part of the genomes of pING4 and pING6, respectively. The efficient
occurrence of these recombination processes is further evidence for the
striking plasticity of the Sulfolobus genome.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max Planck
Institute for Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18A, D-82152 Martinsried,
Germany. Phone: 49-89-8578-2231. Fax: 49-89-8578-2728. E-mail:
zillig{at}biochem.mpg.de.

Present address: Thermal Biology Institute, Montana State
University, Bozeman, MT 59717-3142.

Present address: Department of Microbiology, University of
Regensburg, 95053 Regensburg,
Germany.
Journal of Bacteriology, December 2000, p. 7014-7020, Vol. 182, No. 24
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Zaneveld, J. R., Nemergut, D. R., Knight, R.
(2008). Are all horizontal gene transfers created equal? Prospects for mechanism-based studies of HGT patterns. Microbiology
154: 1-15
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Aucelli, T., Contursi, P., Girfoglio, M., Rossi, M., Cannio, R.
(2006). A spreadable, non-integrative and high copy number shuttle vector for Sulfolobus solfataricus based on the genetic element pSSVx from Sulfolobus islandicus. Nucleic Acids Res
34: e114-e114
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Erauso, G., Stedman, K. M., van de Werken, H. J. G., Zillig, W., van der Oost, J.
(2006). Two novel conjugative plasmids from a single strain of Sulfolobus. Microbiology
152: 1951-1968
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Bartolucci, S., Rossi, M., Cannio, R.
(2003). Characterization and Functional Complementation of a Nonlethal Deletion in the Chromosome of a {beta}-Glycosidase Mutant of Sulfolobus solfataricus. J. Bacteriol.
185: 3948-3957
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Lipps, G., Ibanez, P., Stroessenreuther, T., Hekimian, K., Krauss, G.
(2001). The protein ORF80 from the acidophilic and thermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus islandicus binds highly site-specifically to double-stranded DNA and represents a novel type of basic leucine zipper protein. Nucleic Acids Res
29: 4973-4982
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
She, Q., Singh, R. K., Confalonieri, F., Zivanovic, Y., Allard, G., Awayez, M. J., Chan-Weiher, C. C.-Y., Clausen, I. G., Curtis, B. A., De Moors, A., Erauso, G., Fletcher, C., Gordon, P. M. K., Heikamp-de Jong, I., Jeffries, A. C., Kozera, C. J., Medina, N., Peng, X., Thi-Ngoc, H. P., Redder, P., Schenk, M. E., Theriault, C., Tolstrup, N., Charlebois, R. L., Doolittle, W. F., Duguet, M., Gaasterland, T., Garrett, R. A., Ragan, M. A., Sensen, C. W., Van der Oost, J.
(2001). The complete genome of the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
10.1073/pnas.141222098v1
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
She, Q., Singh, R. K., Confalonieri, F., Zivanovic, Y., Allard, G., Awayez, M. J., Chan-Weiher, C. C.-Y., Clausen, I. G., Curtis, B. A., De Moors, A., Erauso, G., Fletcher, C., Gordon, P. M. K., Heikamp-de Jong, I., Jeffries, A. C., Kozera, C. J., Medina, N., Peng, X., Thi-Ngoc, H. P., Redder, P., Schenk, M. E., Theriault, C., Tolstrup, N., Charlebois, R. L., Doolittle, W. F., Duguet, M., Gaasterland, T., Garrett, R. A., Ragan, M. A., Sensen, C. W., Van der Oost, J.
(2001). The complete genome of the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
98: 7835-7840
[Abstract]
[Full Text]