Author:
Shingaki Ryuji,Kasahara Yasuhiro,Inoue Tetsuyoshi,Kokeguchi Susumu,Fukui Kazuhiro
Abstract
Bacillus subtilis 168 and its major autolysin mutant, AN8, were shown to excrete two size classes of DNA when cultured in LuriaBertani medium. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis of DNA harvested from the cell surface demonstrated the presence of 13-kb-long and circa 50-kb-long strands. Restriction digestion of both sizes of DNA resulted in a smearing pattern, as observed by agarose gel electrophoresis. Shotgun sequencing of DNase I partial digests of 50-kb DNA fragments revealed that the strands originate from various sites on the chromosome. SDSPAGE analysis of cell surface fractions and culture supernatants demonstrated the presence of several proteins that were thought to be associated with the DNA. Of these, three major proteins were identified, i.e., XkdG, XkdK, and XkdM, by tandem mass spectrometry, all of which were proteins of a defective prophage PBSX residing in the Bacillus subtilis chromosome. Disruption of these PBSX genes resulted in a reduction of 13-kb fragment generation and excretion and also a great reduction of 50-kb fragment excretion. Electron microscopy showed that a few mature phages and numerous membrane vesicle-like particles existed in the cell surface fractions of strain 168. The present findings suggest that the spontaneous generation and excretion of chromosome DNA fragments in Bacillus subtilis are both closely related to the expression of defective prophage genes.Key words: chromosome fragmentation, DNA excretion, defective prophage, PBSX, horizontal gene transfer.
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Subject
Genetics,Molecular Biology,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,General Medicine,Immunology,Microbiology
Cited by
14 articles.
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