Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Bacteriology logoLink to Journal of Bacteriology
. 1987 Jan;169(1):308–312. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.1.308-312.1987

DNA element of Corynebacterium diphtheriae with properties of an insertion sequence and usefulness for epidemiological studies.

R Rappuoli, M Perugini, G Ratti
PMCID: PMC211769  PMID: 3025175

Abstract

The segment of DNA which is inserted within the tox gene of bacteriophage gamma and is responsible for its Tox- phenotype was found to be present and repeated approximately 30 times in the chromosome of Corynebacterium diphtheriae Belfanti 1030. Other C. diphtheriae strains contained a variable number of copies (1 to 25) of the same element. Sequence analysis showed that this repeated and interspersed DNA element was flanked by 9-base-pair direct repeats and that the 5' and 3' ends of the insertion contained sequences forming an imperfect inverted repeat. Therefore, the DNA segment here described has most of the typical structural features of a bacterial insertion sequence element. We show that different C. diphtheriae isolates derived from the same outbreak of diphtheria have an identical genomic distribution of this DNA element and that such DNA can be useful for epidemiological studies.

Full text

PDF
308

Images in this article

309Image
on p.309
311Image
on p.311

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. BARDSDALE W. L., PAPPENHEIMER A. M., Jr Phage-host relationships in nontoxigenic and toxigenic diphtheria bacilli. J Bacteriol. 1954 Feb;67(2):220–232. doi: 10.1128/jb.67.2.220-232.1954. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Buck G. A., Groman N. B. Genetic elements novel for Corynebacterium diphtheriae: specialized transducing elements and transposons. J Bacteriol. 1981 Oct;148(1):143–152. doi: 10.1128/jb.148.1.143-152.1981. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Chang D. N., Laughren G. S., Chalvardjian N. E. Three variants of Corynebacterium diphtheriae subsp. mitis (Belfanti) isolated from a throat specimen. J Clin Microbiol. 1978 Dec;8(6):767–768. doi: 10.1128/jcm.8.6.767-768.1978. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Costa J. J., Michel J. L., Rappuoli R., Murphy J. R. Restriction map of corynebacteriophages beta c and beta vir and physical localization of the diphtheria tox operon. J Bacteriol. 1981 Oct;148(1):124–130. doi: 10.1128/jb.148.1.124-130.1981. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Coyle M. B., Minshew B. H., Bland J. A., Hsu P. C. Erythromycin and clindamycin resistance in Corynebacterium diphtheriae from skin lesions. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1979 Oct;16(4):525–527. doi: 10.1128/aac.16.4.525. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Frischauf A. M., Lehrach H., Poustka A., Murray N. Lambda replacement vectors carrying polylinker sequences. J Mol Biol. 1983 Nov 15;170(4):827–842. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80190-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Greenfield L., Bjorn M. J., Horn G., Fong D., Buck G. A., Collier R. J., Kaplan D. A. Nucleotide sequence of the structural gene for diphtheria toxin carried by corynebacteriophage beta. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Nov;80(22):6853–6857. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.22.6853. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Jordan E., Saedler H., Starlinger P. O0 and strong-polar mutations in the gal operon are insertions. Mol Gen Genet. 1968;102(4):353–363. doi: 10.1007/BF00433726. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Leong D., Murphy J. R. Characterization of the diphtheria tox transcript in Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 1985 Sep;163(3):1114–1119. doi: 10.1128/jb.163.3.1114-1119.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Maximescu P. New host-strains for the lysogenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae Park Williams No. 8 strain. J Gen Microbiol. 1968 Aug;53(1):125–133. doi: 10.1099/00221287-53-1-125. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Michel J. L., Rappuoli R., Murphy J. R., Pappenheimer A. M., Jr Restriction endonuclease map of the nontoxigenic corynephage gamma c and its relationship to the toxigenic corynephage beta c. J Virol. 1982 May;42(2):510–518. doi: 10.1128/jvi.42.2.510-518.1982. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Pappenheimer A. M., Jr, Murphy J. R. Studies on the molecular epidemiology of diphtheria. Lancet. 1983 Oct 22;2(8356):923–926. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(83)90449-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Pappenheimer A. M., Jr The diphtheria bacillus and its toxin: a model system. J Hyg (Lond) 1984 Dec;93(3):397–404. doi: 10.1017/s0022172400064998. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Rappuoli R., Michel J. L., Murphy J. R. Restriction endonuclease map of corynebacteriophage omega ctox+ isolated from the Park-Williams no. 8 strain of Corynebacterium diphtheriae. J Virol. 1983 Feb;45(2):524–530. doi: 10.1128/jvi.45.2.524-530.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Rappuoli R., Ratti G., Perugini M., Murphy J. R. Detection and physical map of a omega tox+-related defective prophage in Corynebacterium diphtheriae Belfanti 1030(-)tox-. J Virol. 1985 Apr;54(1):194–198. doi: 10.1128/jvi.54.1.194-198.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Ratti G., Rappuoli R., Giannini G. The complete nucleotide sequence of the gene coding for diphtheria toxin in the corynephage omega (tox+) genome. Nucleic Acids Res. 1983 Oct 11;11(19):6589–6595. doi: 10.1093/nar/11.19.6589. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Rockhill R. C., Sumarmo, Hadiputranto H., Siregar S. P., Muslihun B. Tetracycline resistance of Corynebacterium diphtheriae isolated from diphtheria patients in Jakarta, Indonesia. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1982 May;21(5):842–843. doi: 10.1128/aac.21.5.842. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Sanger F., Nicklen S., Coulson A. R. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Dec;74(12):5463–5467. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Schiller J., Groman N., Coyle M. Plasmids in Corynebacterium diphtheriae and diphtheroids mediating erythromycin resistance. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1980 Nov;18(5):814–821. doi: 10.1128/aac.18.5.814. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Shapiro J. A. Mutations caused by the insertion of genetic material into the galactose operon of Escherichia coli. J Mol Biol. 1969 Feb 28;40(1):93–105. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(69)90298-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Simmons L. E., Abbott J. D., Macaulay M. E., Jones A. E., Ironside A. G., Mandal B. K., Stanbridge T. N., Maximescu P. Diphtheria carriers in Manchester: simultaneous infection with toxigenic and non-toxigenic mitis strains. Lancet. 1980 Feb 9;1(8163):304–305. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(80)90793-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Starlinger P., Saedler H. IS-elements in microorganisms. Curr Top Microbiol Immunol. 1976;75:111–152. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-66530-1_4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Yanisch-Perron C., Vieira J., Messing J. Improved M13 phage cloning vectors and host strains: nucleotide sequences of the M13mp18 and pUC19 vectors. Gene. 1985;33(1):103–119. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(85)90120-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Bacteriology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES