Dissemination of TnMERI1-like mercury resistance transposons among Bacillus isolated from worldwide environmental samples.
Fifty-six mercury-resistant (Hg(R)) Bacillus strains were isolated from natural environments at various sites of the world. Southern hybridisation and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis showed that 21 of the 56 isolates have closely related or identical mer operons to that of Bacillus megaterium MB1. These 21 isolates displayed a broad-spectrum mercury resistance and volatilised Hg(0). PCR amplification with a single primer and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis showed that these 21 isolates had TnMERI1-like class II transposons. These transposons can be classified into Tn5084, Tn5085, or TnMERI1. From these results, at least three types of class II mercury resistance transposons exist in Hg(R)Bacillus and these transposons may contribute the worldwide distribution and horizontal dissemination of the mer operons among Bacillus strains in natural environments.
Narita
Masaru
M
Tohoku Gakuin University, Tagajo, Japan.
Matsui
Kazuaki
K
Huang
Chieh-Chen
CC
Kawabata
Zen'ichiro
Z
Endo
Ginro
G
D001407:Bacillus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015139:Blotting, Southern / Q000379:methods; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000379:methods; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D023061:Gene Order; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D008628:Mercury / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009876:Operon; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D008628:Mercury