DNA rearrangements and phenotypic switching in prokaryotes.
Microorganisms have numerous strategies for coping with environmental changes. In many systems, a single cell has the capacity to generate a seemingly infinite array of phenotypic variants in just a few generations of growth. The resulting heterogeneous population is well equipped for sudden environmental change; even if only a few cells in the population possess a phenotype needed for survival, these cells have the capacity to regenerate a similarly diverse population. Phenotypic switching in these systems usually results from high-frequency DNA rearrangements which are the subject of this review.
Department of Comparative Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham 35294.
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D007446:Chromosome Inversion; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases / Q000378:metabolism; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D004720:Endonucleases / Q000378:metabolism; D005785:Gene Conversion; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D019426:Integrases; D010641:Phenotype; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D045522:Recombinases; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004279:DNA, Viral; D045522:Recombinases; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases; D019426:Integrases; C115006:integron integrase IntI1; D004720:Endonucleases