title: Tn5041: a chimeric mercury resistance transposon closely related to the toluene degradative transposon Tn4651.
abstract: This paper reports the discovery and characterization of Tn5041, a novel-type transposon vehicle for dissemination of mercury resistance in natural bacterial populations. Tn5041 (14876 bp), identified in a Pseudomonas strain from a mercury mine, is a Tn3 family mercury resistance transposon far outside the Tn21 subgroup. As in other Tn3 family transposons, Tn5041 duplicates 5 bp of the target sequence following insertion. Tn5041 apparently acquired its mer operon as a single-ended relic of a transposon belonging to the classical mercury resistance transposons of the Tn21 subgroup. The putative transposase and the 47 bp terminal inverted repeats of Tn5041 are closely related to those of the toluene degradative transposon Tn4651 and fall into a distinct subgroup on the fringe of the Tn3 family. The amino acid sequence of the putative resolvase of Tn5041 resembles site-specific recombinases of the integrase family. Besides the mer operon and putative transposition genes, Tn5041 contains a 4 kb region that accommodates a number of apparently defective genes and mobile elements.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: G Ya
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Kholodii
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: O V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Yurieva
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: Zh M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Gorlenko
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: S Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Mindlin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: I A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Bass
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: O L
authors.initials: OL
authors.lastname: Lomovskay
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Kopteva
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia.
authors.forename: V G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Nikiforov
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D002678:Chimera; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases / Q000235:genetics; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial / Q000235:genetics; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D019426:Integrases; D008628:Mercury / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009876:Operon; D011549:Pseudomonas / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*; D045522:Recombinases; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014050:Toluene / Q000378:metabolism; D045564:Transposon Resolvases
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D045522:Recombinases; D014050:Toluene; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases; D019426:Integrases; C473490:Tn21 resolvase; D045564:Transposon Resolvases; C115006:integron integrase IntI1; D008628:Mercury