Rao X M, Meyer R J
Department of Microbiology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.
J Bacteriol. 1994 Oct;176(19):5958-61. doi: 10.1128/jb.176.19.5958-5961.1994.
Conjugal transfer of plasmid R1162 is initiated and terminated at a 38-bp origin of transfer (oriT). Plasmids containing two directly repeated copies of oriT were used to determine the actual frequency of termination at this site. This frequency was calculated both for oriTnic, a mutated origin that cannot act as the initiation site of transfer, and for an unmutated oriT where transfer had been initiated. In both cases, the termination frequency decreased as the distance between the initiation and termination sites became greater and was significantly less than one for plasmids the size of R1162. A substantial proportion of recipient cells received more than one plasmid copy during transfer. Our results indicate that termination is inefficient but that this is partly compensated for by the transmission of multiple plasmid copies.
质粒R1162的接合转移在一个38碱基对的转移起始点(oriT)起始和终止。含有两个直接重复oriT拷贝的质粒被用于确定该位点实际的终止频率。针对oriTnic(一个不能作为转移起始位点的突变起始点)和一个已起始转移的未突变oriT,都计算了终止频率。在这两种情况下,终止频率都随着起始位点和终止位点之间的距离增大而降低,并且对于R1162大小的质粒而言,终止频率显著小于1。相当一部分受体细胞在转移过程中接收了不止一个质粒拷贝。我们的结果表明,终止效率低下,但这在一定程度上通过多个质粒拷贝的传递得到了补偿。