Evolution and function of the neisserial dam‐replacing gene

FEBS Letters

Bruni, Carmelo Bruno¹  Lavitola, Alfredo¹  Pagliarulo, Caterina¹  Alifano, Pietro²  Salvatore, Paola¹  Bucci, Cecilia¹  Roberti, Vera¹  Cantalupo, Giuseppina¹ 

[1] Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare ‘L. Califano’, Università di Napoli ‘Federico II’, and Centro di Endocrinologia ed Oncologia Sperimentale ‘G. Salvatore’, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via S. Pansini 5, 80131 Naples, Italy;Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Lecce, Via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy

关键词: Type II restriction endonuclease;    NmeBII;    DNA repair;    Neisserial small repeated element;    Non-pathogenic Neisseria;    Neisseria meningitidis;    Neisseria lactamica;   

DOI  :  10.1016/S0014-5793(01)02388-2

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

Phase variation through slippage-like mechanisms involving homopolymeric tracts depends in part on the absence of Dam-methylase in several pathogenic isolates of Neisseria meningitidis. In Dam-defective strains drg (dam-replacing gene), flanked by pseudo-transposable small repeated elements (SREs), replaced dam. We demonstrate that drg encodes a restriction endonuclease (NmeBII) that cleaves 5′-GmeATC-3′. drg is also present in 50% of Neisseria lactamica strains, but in most of them it is inactive because of the absence of an SRE-providing promoter. This is associated with the presence of GATmeC, suggesting an alternative restriction-modification system (RM) specific for 5′-GATC-3′, similar to Sau3AI-RM of Staphylococcus aureus 3A, Lactococcus lactis KR2 and Listeria monocytogenes.

【 授权许可】

Unknown