title: Role of RNA transcripts in replication incompatibility and copy number control in antibiotic resistance plasmid derivatives.
abstract: The genes required for autonomous replication and incompatibility in the antibiotic resistance plasmids R100 and R1 have been located within a 2.5-kilobase region of the 90-kilobase genome, within which the incompatibility gene occupies a 1.3-kilobase region excluding the replication origin. We now report that three RNA species are synthesized in vitro from the 2.5-kilobase region, which R100 and R1 have in common. One, a long RNA molecule which is transcribed in the direction of DNA replication, probably acts as a messenger or a protein required for plasmid replication. The second RNA species, only 91 nucleotides long, is transcribed in the opposite direction, from a region of the DNA entirely contained within the first and known to specify incompatibility and copy control functions. The third RNA species, 150 bases long, is transcribed from a region including the replication origin; it may be a primer of DNA synthesis or, in conjunction with the second of the three RNA species, an influence in the control of replication.
mesh_terms: D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D004261:DNA Replication; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D005796:Genes; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D011815:R Factors; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D012093:Replicon; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012329:RNA, Bacterial