FIG. 6.

(A) Western blot analysis of the VspA and VspC clonal isolates. Total cell proteins from the VspC (lane 2) and VspA (lane 1) isolates were immunoblotted with MAb 2A8 (27). The authentic VspC 75-kDa protein band is indicated by an arrow. (B) Expression in E. coli of recombinant vspC and vspO genes. E. coli cells expressing, under selective control of the T7 promoter, the recombinant plasmid pKC₇₅ carrying the vspC gene (lane 1) or the recombinant plasmid pKO₃₅ carrying the vspO gene were separated by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotted with MAb 2A8. The recombinant VspC and the VspO products (75 and 35 kDa, respectively) are marked by labeled arrows. Notably, the size of the recombinant VspO product expressed in E. coli does not represent the complete vspO coding sequence due to the presence of two UGA residues at the C terminus (which encode the amino acid tryptophan in mycoplasmas). No UGA codons were found within the vspC gene.