title: Plasmid deletion formation in Bacillus subtilis.
abstract: Plasmid pGP1 carrying a penP-lacZ fusion was used to study structural plasmid instability in Bacillus subtilis. In only one of 28 sequenced deletion junction points in the penP-lacZ region short direct repeats (10 bp) and flanking imperfect inverted repeats (12 bp) were associated with endpoints. In 27 deletions no repeated sequences of more than 3 bp were present at the endpoints. In 15 of these the sequence 5'-T-G-T-A-3' was found within 10 bp from the left endpoint. At the left cleavage sites the sequence 5'-T-T-T-3', or the 5'-A-A-A-3' complement thereof, was frequently observed. Most of the left deletion endpoints were located in potential stem-loop structures in the penP transcription/translation regulatory region, which is very rich in hyphenated dyad symmetry. Near the right deletion endpoints a sequence consisting of four G/C residues, followed by three or four A/T residues, was found in 15 cases. It is speculated that DNA topoisomerase I is involved in the formation of the deletions studied.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Center of Biological Sciences, Haren, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Peijnenburg
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bron
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Venema
mesh_terms: D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002872:Chromosome Deletion; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010957:Plasmids; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid