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Homologies between heterogeneous extrachromosomal DNA populations of Halobacterium halobium and four new halobacterial isolates

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Summary

Heterogeneous collections of covalently-closed circular DNA (cccDNA) comprise up to 10% of the total DNA of H. halobium and four other halophilic strains (SB3, GRA, GRB and GN101) recently isolated from different sources. All of these bacteria have purple membrane, bacterioruberin and gas vacuoles as characteristic phenotypic markers. Most of the major cccDNA species of these isolates are not homologous to pHH1, the main 150 kb cccDNA of H. halobium NRC817. Only GN101 and SB3 have a cccDNA which is partly homologous to pHH1. In GN101 the homology is to the halobacterial insertion sequence ISH23 found in pHH1. In SB3 the homology is to ISH26, a new insertion sequence isolated from H. halobium NRC817 which has a size of 1,400 bp. Extensive homologies mologies exist between the minor cccDNA species in all five strains indicating that this cccDNA species is highly conserved and possibly originates from (or is part of) the chromosome.

A 1.6 kb high copy number cccDNA species is present in three independently isolated GN101, GRB and SB3. This 1.6 kb cccDNA is not homologous to any other extrachromosomal or chromosomal DNA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Genetik und Mikrobiologie der Universität Würzburg, Röntgenring 11, D-8700, Würzburg, Federal Republic of Germany

    Klaus Ebert & Werner Goebel

  2. Dept. of Biochemistry, University of California, San Francisco, 94143, San Francisco, California, USA

    Felicitas Pfeifer

Authors
  1. Klaus Ebert
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  2. Werner Goebel
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  3. Felicitas Pfeifer
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Communicated by E. Bautz

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Ebert, K., Goebel, W. & Pfeifer, F. Homologies between heterogeneous extrachromosomal DNA populations of Halobacterium halobium and four new halobacterial isolates. Molec. Gen. Genet. 194, 91–97 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383502

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383502

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