title: Prevalence and diversity of insertion sequences in the genome of Bacillus thuringiensis YBT-1520 and comparison with other Bacillus cereus group members.
abstract: Members of the Bacillus cereus group are closely related bacteria that exhibit highly divergent pathogenic properties. Sequencing of Bacillus thuringiensis ssp. kurstaki strain YBT-1520 revealed an increased number of insertion sequences (ISs) compared with those of the published B. cereus group genomes. Although some of these ISs have been observed and summarized in B. thuringiensis previously, a genomic characterization of their content is required to reveal their distribution and evolution. The result shows that the larger number of transposase coding genes on YBT-1520 chromosome is mainly caused by the amplification of IS231C, IS232A and ISBth166. Some functional genes have been disrupted through the insertion of ISs, preferentially IS231C. By comparing the Southern hybridization profiles of different B. thuringiensis strains, the existence of ISBth166 was mainly found in serovar kurstaki and the recent expansion of IS231C between different kurstaki isolates was suggested. In addition to revealing the ISs profile in YBT-1520 as well as the comparison in the B. cereus group, this study will contribute to further comparative analyses of multiple B. thuringiensis strains aimed at understanding the IS-mediated genomic rearrangements among them.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology and National Engineering Research Center of Microbial Pesticides, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Mingshun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Ziniu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D001409:Bacillus cereus / Q000235:genetics*; D001413:Bacillus thuringiensis / Q000235:genetics*; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial