Chromosomal Location Determines the Rate of Intrachromosomal Homologous Recombination in Salmonella

Homologous recombination is an important mechanism directly involved in the repair, organization, and evolution of prokaryotic and eukaryotic chromosomes. We developed a system, based on two genetic cassettes, that allows the measurement of recombinational repair rates between different locations on the chromosome. Using this system, we analyzed 81 different positional combinations throughout the chromosome to answer the question of how the position and orientation of sequences affect intrachromosomal homologous recombination. Our results show that recombination was possible between any two locations tested in this study and that recombinational repair rates varied by just above an order of magnitude. The observed differences in rate do not correlate with distance between the recombination cassettes or with distance from the origin of replication but could be explained if each location contributes individually to the recombination event. The relative levels of accessibility for recombination vary 5-fold between the various cassette locations, and we found that the nucleoid structure of the chromosome may be the major factor influencing the recombinational accessibility of each chromosomal site. Furthermore, we found that the orientation of the recombination cassettes had a significant impact on recombination. Recombinational repair rates for the cassettes inserted as direct repeats are, on average, 2.2-fold higher than those for the same sets inserted as inverted repeats. These results suggest that the bacterial chromosome is not homogenous with regard to homologous recombination, with regions that are more or less accessible, and that the orientation of genes affects recombination rates.