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Journal of Virology, January 2000, p. 611-618, Vol. 74, No. 2
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Widespread Distribution of a Group I Intron and Its
Three Deletion Derivatives in the Lysin Gene of Streptococcus
thermophilus Bacteriophages
Sophie
Foley,
Anne
Bruttin, and
Harald
Brüssow*
Nestlé Research Centre, Nestec Ltd.,
CH-1000 Lausanne 26, Switzerland
Received 21 June 1999/Accepted 7 October 1999
Of 62 Streptococcus thermophilus bacteriophages
isolated from various ecological settings, half contain a lysin gene
interrupted by a group IA2 intron. Phage mRNA splicing was
demonstrated. Five phages possess a variant form of the intron
resulting from three distinct deletion events located in the
intron-harbored open reading frame (orf 253). The predicted orf 253 gene sequence showed a significantly lower GC content than the
surrounding intron and lysin gene sequences, and the predicted protein
shared a motif with endonucleases found in phages from both
gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. A comparison of the phage
lysin genes revealed a clear division between intron-containing and
intron-free alleles, leading to the establishment of a 14-bp consensus
sequence associated with intron possession. The conserved intron was
not found elsewhere in the phage or S. thermophilus
bacterial genomes. Folding of the intron RNA revealed secondary
structure elements shared with other phage introns: first, a 38-bp
insertion between regions P3 and P4 that can be folded into two
stem-loop structures (shared with introns from Bacillus
phage SPO1 and relatives); second, a conserved P7.2 region (shared with
all phage introns); third, the location of the stop codon from orf 253 in the P8 stem (shared with coliphage T4 and Bacillus phage
SPO1 introns); fourth, orf 253, which has sequence similarity with the
H-N-H motif of putative endonuclease genes found in introns from
Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, and
Bacillus phages.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Nestlé
Research Centre, Nestec Ltd., Vers-chez-les-Blanc, CH-1000 Lausanne 26, Switzerland. Phone: 41 21 785 8676. Fax: 41 21 785 8925. E-mail:
Harald.Bruessow{at}rdls.nestle.com.
Journal of Virology, January 2000, p. 611-618, Vol. 74, No. 2
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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