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J. Bacteriol. doi:10.1128/JB.01647-06
Copyright (c) 2006, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

In Vitro Analysis of Rates and Spectra of Mutations in a Polymorphic Region of the Rv0746 PE_PGRS Gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

MRC/NHLS/WITS Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit, DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, School of Pathology of the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa; Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie, Universität Zürich, Gloriastr. 30/32, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: edith.machowski{at}nhls.ac.za. mizrahiv{at}pathology.wits.ac.za.

	Abstract

An assay modelled on a known polymorphism in the PE_PGRS9 gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was designed to assess the mutability of a sequence containing interspersed PGRS repeats. Application of the assay in Mycobacterium smegmatis revealed sequence plasticity: in addition to recapitulating the mutation on which it was based, other mutations likely mediated by replication slippage between PGRS repeats were detected. However, the mutation rates argued against marked hypermutability of such sequences in mycobacteria.