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Homology between cryptic plasmid from Neisseria gonorrhoeae and genomic DNA from Neisseria meningitidis
Author(s) -
GRIMHOLT UNNI,
OLSAKER INGRID,
AALEN REIDUNN,
GUNDERSEN WENCHE BLIX
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1993.tb00102.x
Subject(s) - plasmid , neisseria meningitidis , neisseria gonorrhoeae , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , genomic dna , restriction map , genetics , neisseriaceae , homology (biology) , southern blot , species complex , genome , dna , gene , bacteria , phylogenetic tree
The human pathogenic Neisseria species N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis are closely related. In contrast to N. meningitidis , however, almost all clinical isolates of N. gonorrhoeae harbour a pheno‐typically cryptic plasmid. In some gonococcal strains regions of the cryptic plasmid have been found in the gonococcal genome and it has been suggested that large segments of the cryptic plasmid can be integrated into the gonococcal chromosome of both plasmid‐bearing and plasmid‐free strains. Here we report homology between parts of the cryptic gonococcal plasmid and genomic DNA from four different N. meningitidis strains from systemic disease isolates in which no plasmids have been found with the applied methods. Serogroup B strains, causing many of the cases of meningococcal disease in Norway, hybridized strongly to the cryptic plasmid probe, in contrast to serogroup A and C strains. Clones hybridizing to the cryptic plasmid were isolated from a meningococcal genomic Λ EMBL3 DNA library and characterized by restriction mapping. When using one such clone as a probe the parts of the cryptic plasmid showing homology to the genomic meningococcal DNA were confined to two small separate regions of 420 and 88 bp.