Characterization and in vitro reaction properties of 19 unique hairpin telomeres from the linear plasmids of the lyme disease spirochete.

ABSTRACT: The genome of the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi contains about a dozen linear DNA molecules that carry covalently closed hairpin telomeres as a specialized mechanism for dealing with the end-replication problem. The hairpin telomeres are generated from replicative intermediates through a two-step transesterification promoted by the telomere resolvase ResT. Although the genome of B. burgdorferi has been sequenced, the sequence of most telomeres has remained unknown because of difficulties in recovering and completely sequencing the covalently closed hairpin ends. In this study we report a new approach for the direct sequencing Borrelia telomeres and report the sequence, characterization, and in vitro reaction properties of 19 unique telomeres. Surprisingly, a variation of great

SUBMITTER: Tourand Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2652300 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature