Ghelardini P, Liébart J C, Fabozzi G, Tomassini B, D'Ari R, Paolozzi L
Centro di Studio per gli Acidi Nucleici del CNR, c/o Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Italy.
FEMS Microbiol Rev. 1995 Aug;17(1-2):171-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6976.1995.tb00199.x.
Mutations induced by the integration of a Mu gem2ts mutant prophage can revert at frequencies around 1 x 10(-6), more than 10(4)-fold higher than that obtained with Mu wild-type. Several aspects characterize Mu gem2ts precise excision: (i) the phage transposase is not involved; (ii) the RecA protein is not necessary; and (iii) revertants remain lysogenic with the prophage inserted elsewhere in the host genome. In addition, prophage re-integration seems to be non-randomly distributed, whereas Mu insertion into the host genome is a transposition event without any sequence specificity. In this paper, we describe that the site of re-integration somehow depends on the original site of insertion. Two alternative models are proposed to explain the strong correlation between donor and receptor sites.
