tra region of the natural conjugative Escherichia coli plasmid pRKlOO is F-like

Abstract

The aim of the presented study was to identify the similarity of the pRKI00 tra region with tra regions of other conjugative plasmids of Enterobacteriaceae.For this purpose several tra genes were amplified with PCR and the nucleotide sequences of the obtained PCR products were determined. The pRKI OO's nucleotide sequences were compared to the nucleotide sequences deposited in GenBank and the nucleotide divergence between them was calculated. The obtained results clearly demonstrated, that the tra region of pRKI0O is the most similar to the tra region of plasmid F.