The bacterium is known to efficiently and accurately reassemble its genome after hundreds of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). Only at very large amounts of radiation-induced DSBs is this accuracy affected in the wild-type , causing rearrangements in its genome structure. However, changes in its genome structure may also be possible during the propagation and storage of cell cultures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAuxin amino acid conjugates are considered to be storage forms of auxins. Previous research has shown that indole-3-acetyl-L-alanine (IAA-Ala), indole-3-propionyl-L-alanine (IPA-Ala) and indole-3-butyryl-L-alanine (IBA-Ala) affect the root growth of seedlings. To elucidate the potential mechanism of action of the conjugates, we treated seedlings with 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHomologous recombination repairs potentially lethal DNA lesions such as double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) and single-strand DNA gaps (SSGs). In , DSB repair is initiated by the RecBCD enzyme that resects double-strand DNA ends and loads RecA recombinase to the emerging single-strand (ss) DNA tails. SSG repair is mediated by the RecFOR protein complex that loads RecA onto the ssDNA segment of gaped duplex.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFColibacillosis is one of the most common problems in the poultry industry. Escherichia coli strains on farms are often genetically diverse and therefore commercial vaccines provide little protection to the flocks. Here, we investigated the effect of the autogenous E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenome stability in radioresistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans depends on RecA, the main bacterial recombinase. Without RecA, gross genome rearrangements occur during repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Long repeated (insertion) sequences have been identified as hot spots for ectopic recombination leading to genome rearrangements, and single-strand annealing (SSA) postulated to be the most likely mechanism involved in this process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe RecA protein is a key bacterial recombination enzyme that catalyzes pairing and strand exchange between homologous DNA duplexes. In Escherichia coli, RecA protein assembly on DNA is mediated either by the RecBCD or RecFOR protein complexes. Correspondingly, two recombination pathways, RecBCD and RecF (or RecFOR), are distinguished in E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransmissible hypovirulence associated with Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 (CHV1) has been used for biological control of chestnut blight, devastating disease of chestnut caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica. The main aims of this study were to provide molecular characterization of CHV1 from Croatia and Slovenia and to reveal its genetic variability, phylogeny, and diversification of populations. Fifty-one CHV1 haplotypes were detected among 54 partially sequenced CHV1 isolates, all belonging to Italian subtype (I).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInversions are a major contributor to structural genome evolution in prokaryotes. Here, using a novel alignment-based method, we systematically compare 1,651 bacterial and 98 archaeal genomes to show that inversion landscapes are frequently biased toward (symmetric) inversions around the origin-terminus axis. However, symmetric inversion bias is not a universal feature of prokaryotic genome evolution but varies considerably across clades.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSelf-splicing introns populate several highly conserved protein-coding genes in fungal and plant mitochondria. In fungi, many of these introns have retained their ability to spread to intron-free target sites, often assisted by intron-encoded endonucleases that initiate the homing process. Here, leveraging population genomic data from , , and , we expose nonrandom patterns of genetic diversity in exons that border self-splicing introns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA number of bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic species are known for their resistance to ionizing radiation. One of the challenges these species face is a potent environmental source of DNA double-strand breaks, potential drivers of genome structure evolution. Efficient and accurate DNA double-strand break repair systems have been demonstrated in several unrelated radiation-resistant species and are putative adaptations to the DNA damaging environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recA mutants of Escherichia coli exhibit an abnormal DNA degradation that starts at sites of double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs), and is mediated by RecBCD exonuclease (ExoV). This "reckless" DNA degradation occurs spontaneously in exponentially growing recA cells, and is stimulated by DNA-damaging agents. We have previously found that the xonA and sbcD mutations, which inactivate exonuclease I (ExoI) and SbcCD nuclease, respectively, markedly suppress "reckless" DNA degradation in UV-irradiated recA cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recBCD sbcB sbcC(D) mutants of Escherichia coli homologous recombination proceeds via RecF pathway, which is thought to require RecQ, UvrD and HelD helicases at its initial stage. It was previously suggested that depletion of all three helicases totally abolishes the RecF pathway. The present study (re)examines the roles of these helicases in transductional recombination, and in recombinational repair of UV-induced DNA damage in the RecF pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeinococcus radiodurans is one of the most radiation-resistant organisms known. It can repair hundreds of radiation-induced double-strand DNA breaks without loss of viability. Genome reassembly in heavily irradiated D.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCodon usage bias in prokaryotic genomes is largely a consequence of background substitution patterns in DNA, but highly expressed genes may show a preference towards codons that enable more efficient and/or accurate translation. We introduce a novel approach based on supervised machine learning that detects effects of translational selection on genes, while controlling for local variation in nucleotide substitution patterns represented as sequence composition of intergenic DNA. A cornerstone of our method is a Random Forest classifier that outperformed previous distance measure-based approaches, such as the codon adaptation index, in the task of discerning the (highly expressed) ribosomal protein genes by their codon frequencies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF