Association of a retroelement with a P4-like cryptic prophage (retronphage phi R73) integrated into the selenocystyl tRNA gene of Escherichia coli.
A new multicopy single-stranded DNA (msDNA-Ec73) was found in a clinical strain of Escherichia coli. Retron-Ec73, consisting of an msDNA-coding region and the gene for reverse transcriptase (RT), was found to be a part of a 12.7-kb foreign DNA fragment flanked by 29-bp direct repeats and integrated into the gene for selenocystyl-tRNA (selC) at 82 min on the E. coli chromosome. Except for the 2.4-kb retron region, the integrated DNA fragment showed remarkable homology to most of the bacteriophage P4 genome. Among the phage genes found in this element, however, the integrase gene had very low identity (40%) to P4 integrase, indicating that the cryptic prophage associated with the retroelement has its own unique site-specific integrase different from P4 integrase. Recently, we have shown that P2 phage can act as a helper to excise the cryptic prophage and to package its genome into an infectious virion. The newly formed phage (retronphage phi R73) can also lysogenize a new host strain, reintegrating its genome into the selC gene and enabling the newly formed lysogen to produce msDNA-Ec73 (S. Inouye, M. G. Sunshine, E. W. Six, and M. Inouye, Science 252:969-971, 1991).
Sun
J
J
Department of Biochemistry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey at Rutgers, Piscataway 08854-5635.
Inouye
M
M
Inouye
S
S
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D002876:Chromosomes, Bacterial; D003090:Coliphages / Q000235:genetics*; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases / Q000378:metabolism; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000737:chemistry; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D019426:Integrases; D008242:Lysogeny; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D012345:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acid-Specific / Q000235:genetics*; D012194:RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase / Q000235:genetics; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013379:Substrate Specificity
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D012345:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acid-Specific; C036928:tRNA, selenocysteine-; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases; D019426:Integrases; D012194:RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase