In trying to rescue amphibians from a global fungus epidemic, researchers are finding that bacteria may be their best allies.
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Many organisms have established symbiotic relationships with acquired mobile genetic elements (MGEs) integrated in their genomes (1). MGEs spread among genomes within and across microbial species through horizontal gene transfer and, once integrated into host chromosome, are disseminated vertically to the progeny, causing rapid evolution of drug resistance, pathogenicity, and virulence traits (2, 3). The MGEs that integrates into the host bacterial chromosomes (IMGEs) either carry their own DNA integration machineries or exploit machineries already existing in the host organisms for integration (4). The latter elements are of interest, in part, because of their contribution to pathogenesis, antimicrobial resistance, and other medically relevant properties (5, 6). One of the host site-specific recombination systems frequently exploited by IMGEs is the widely distributed bacterial chromosome dimer-resolving Xer recombination system, a system that recombines chromosomes at dif site located near where DNA replication terminates (7). As in all organisms, during DNA replication of bacteria, many DNA damages need to be repaired by homologous recombination reaction. For bacteria having circular chromosomes, this often generates circular dimer chromosome, causing problems when the cell divides. Hence, when a pair of unresolved chromosome dimer junctions get trapped at the closing cell division septum, the pair of dif sites with XerC and XerD recombinases bound across the recombination junction encounter FtsK DNA translocation pump, a component of the closing septum complex, whose job is to clear trapped DNA out of the septum. This encounter triggers initiation of recombination by activating XerD to carry out the first strand exchange, generating a Holliday junction recombination intermediate, which is resolved by XerC-mediated second pair of strand exchange (8). XerC is an efficient resolver of the recombination intermediate but a poor recombination initiator. Without FtsK activation, Xer remains essentially silent, avoiding formation of chromosome dimer out of 2 separable replicated …
↵1Email: bhabatosh{at}thsti.res.in.
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Insights into TLCΦ lysogeny: A twist in the mechanism of IMEX integration
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