HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplementary figure Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Erauso, G. Articles by van der Oost, J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Erauso, G. Articles by van der Oost, J. Agricola Articles by Erauso, G. Articles by van der Oost, J.

Two novel conjugative plasmids from a single strain of Sulfolobus

Wolfram Zillig^3,

¹ Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
² UMR CNRS 6539, IUEM, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Technopôle Brest-Iroise, Place Copernic, 29280 Plouzané, France
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Martinsried, Germany
⁴ Biology Department, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207, USA

Correspondence
Gaël Erauso
gael.erauso{at}univ-brest.fr

Two conjugative plasmids (CPs) were isolated and characterized from the same ‘Sulfolobus islandicus’ strain, SOG2/4. The plasmids were separated from each other and transferred into Sulfolobus solfataricus. One has a high copy number and is not stable (pSOG1) whereas the other has a low copy number and is stably maintained (pSOG2). Plasmid pSOG2 is the first Sulfolobus CP found to have these characteristics. The genomes of both pSOG plasmids have been sequenced and were compared to each other and the available Sulfolobus CPs. Interestingly, apart from a very well-conserved core, 70 % of the pSOG1 and pSOG2 genomes is largely different and composed of a mixture of genes that often resemble counterparts in previously described Sulfolobus CPs. However, about 20 % of the predicted genes do not have known homologues, not even in other CPs. Unlike pSOG1, pSOG2 does not contain a gene for the highly conserved PlrA protein nor for obvious homologues of partitioning proteins. Unlike pNOB8 and pKEF9, both pSOG plasmids lack the so-called clustered regularly interspaced short palindrome repeats (CRISPRs). The sites of recombination between the two genomes can be explained by the presence of recombination motifs previously identified in other Sulfolobus CPs. Like other Sulfolobus CPs, the pSOG plasmids possess a gene encoding an integrase of the tyrosine recombinase family. This integrase probably mediates plasmid site-specific integration into the host chromosome at the highly conserved tRNA^Glu loci.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the sequences of the pSOG plasmids are DQ335583 (pSOG1) and DQ335584 (pSOG2).

An alignment of the Sulfolobus CP integrases with representative members of the tyrosine recombinases is available as supplementary data with the online version of this paper.

Deceased.