Publication Date:
2009-05-23
Description:
Integrons are found in the genome of hundreds of environmental bacteria but are mainly known for their role in the capture and spread of antibiotic resistance determinants among Gram-negative pathogens. We report a direct link between this system and the ubiquitous SOS response. We found that LexA controlled expression of most integron integrases and consequently regulated cassette recombination. This regulatory coupling enhanced the potential for cassette swapping and capture in cells under stress, while minimizing cassette rearrangements or loss in constant environments. This finding exposes integrons as integrated adaptive systems and has implications for antibiotic treatment policies.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Guerin, Emilie -- Cambray, Guillaume -- Sanchez-Alberola, Neus -- Campoy, Susana -- Erill, Ivan -- Da Re, Sandra -- Gonzalez-Zorn, Bruno -- Barbe, Jordi -- Ploy, Marie-Cecile -- Mazel, Didier -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 May 22;324(5930):1034. doi: 10.1126/science.1172914.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Universite de Limoges, Faculte de Medecine, EA3175, INSERM, Equipe Avenir, 87000 Limoges, France.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19460999" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Bacterial Proteins/metabolism
;
Base Sequence
;
Binding Sites
;
Drug Resistance, Bacterial/genetics
;
Escherichia coli/*genetics/metabolism
;
Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
;
Integrases/genetics
;
Integrons/*genetics
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Promoter Regions, Genetic
;
*Recombination, Genetic
;
*SOS Response (Genetics)
;
Serine Endopeptidases/metabolism
;
Vibrio cholerae/*genetics/metabolism
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics