Molecular characteristics of spontaneous deletions in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

ABSTRACT: Prokaryotic genomes acquire and eliminate blocks of DNA sequence by lateral gene transfer and spontaneous deletion, respectively. The basic parameters of spontaneous deletion, which are expected to influence the course of genome evolution, have not been determined for any hyperthermophilic archaeon. We therefore screened a number of independent pyrimidine auxotrophs of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius for deletions and sequenced those detected. Deletions accounted for only 0.4% of spontaneous pyrE mutations, corresponding to a frequency of about 10(-8) per cell. Nucleotide sequence analysis of five independent deletions showed no significant association of the endpoints with short direct repeats, despite the fact that several such repeats occur within the pyrE gene and that duplication mutations

SUBMITTER: Grogan DW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC142876 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature