Diversity-generating Retroelements in Phage and Bacterial Genomes.

ABSTRACT: Diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs) are DNA diversification machines found in diverse bacterial and bacteriophage genomes that accelerate the evolution of ligand-receptor interactions. Diversification results from a unidirectional transfer of sequence information from an invariant template repeat (TR) to a variable repeat (VR) located in a protein-encoding gene. Information transfer is coupled to site-specific mutagenesis in a process called mutagenic homing, which occurs through an RNA intermediate and is catalyzed by a unique, DGR-encoded reverse transcriptase that converts adenine residues in the TR into random nucleotides in the VR. In the prototype DGR found in the Bordetella bacteriophage BPP-1, the variable protein Mtd is responsible for phage receptor recognition. VR diversif

SUBMITTER: Guo H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4498404 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature