Open AccessIn Vitro Analysis of Rates and Spectra of Mutations in a Polymorphic Region of the Rv0746 PE_PGRS Gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Author(s) -
Edith E. Machowski,
Samantha Barichievy,
Burkhard Springer,
Steven I. Durbach,
Valerie Mizrahi
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of bacteriology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.652
H-Index - 246
eISSN - 1067-8832
pISSN - 0021-9193
DOI - 10.1128/jb.01647-06
Subject(s) - biology , mycobacterium tuberculosis , mycobacterium smegmatis , genetics , gene , mutation , mutation rate , mycobacterium , sequence analysis , direct repeat , microbiology and biotechnology , tuberculosis , genome , bacteria , medicine , pathology
An assay modeled on a known polymorphism in the PE_PGRS9 gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was designed to assess the mutability of a sequence containing interspersed PGRS repeats. Application of the assay in Mycobacterium smegmatis revealed sequence plasticity: in addition to recapitulating the mutation on which it was based, other mutations likely mediated by replication slippage between PGRS repeats were detected. However, the mutation rates argued against marked hypermutability of such sequences in mycobacteria.