Linear chromosome-generating system of Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58: protelomerase generates and protects hairpin ends.

ABSTRACT: Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58, the pathogenic bacteria that causes crown gall disease in plants, harbors one circular and one linear chromosome and two circular plasmids. The telomeres of its unusual linear chromosome are covalently closed hairpins. The circular and linear chromosomes co-segregate and are stably maintained in the organism. We have determined the sequence of the two ends of the linear chromosome thus completing the previously published genome sequence of A. tumefaciens C58. We found that the telomeres carry nearly identical 25-bp sequences at the hairpin ends that are related by dyad symmetry. We further showed that its Atu2523 gene encodes a protelomerase (resolvase) and that the purified enzyme can generate the linear chromosomal closed hairpin ends in a sequence-specific

SUBMITTER: Huang WM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3408200 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature