Rapid and simultaneous detection of linear chromosome and large plasmids in Proteobacteria.

Bacterial genomic architectures are complex and play important roles in genome evolution. While most bacterial lineage genomes contain a single chromosome often accompanied by plasmids, more and more genomes are described as harboring a linear or a second chromosome. Thus, the development of bacterial genomics leads to the study of bacterial genome architectures. In order to avoid laborious techniques combining several methods, we developed an original plug-free pulsed field gel electrophoresis procedure, that enabled us to co-characterize reproducibly the presence of linear chromosomes and plasmids ranging between 30 kb and 2000 kb in various proteobacterial lineages.