Duplicated sporulation genes in bacteria

FEBS Letters

Mandelstam, J.²  Fort, P.¹  Errington, J.² 

[1] Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire, Université de Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, Place E. Bataillou, 34060 Montpellier Cedex, France;Microbiology Unit, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3QU, England

关键词: Bacterial sporulation;    Ribosome;    Phage replication;    Genetic regulation of development;    Sigma factor;   

DOI  :  10.1016/0014-5793(85)80368-9

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

Statistical analysis indicates that about 150 genes might be needed for spore formation in Bacillus subtilis [1]. We have sequenced 11 of these and examined the predicted amino acid sequences for the possibility that present-day sporulating bacteria may have evolved from ancestral forms in which sporulation was governed by a smaller number of genes. We have identified two pairs of duplicated genes. The first of them involves a sequence which shows major homologies with both the sigma factor (σ) of RNA polymerase in Escherichia coli and σ²⁹ in B. subtilis. Another example of homology involves no less than 4 separate genes coding for the acid-soluble proteins of the spore [2]. We conclude that sporulation may have evolved from a much smaller number of genes that we first envisaged and it is likely, anyway, to be no more complex than replication of the larger coliphages.

【 授权许可】

Unknown