The vaa locus of Mycoplasma hominis contains a divergent genetic islet encoding a putative membrane protein

BMC Microbiology
T BoesenG Christiansen

Abstract

The Mycoplasma hominis vaa gene encodes a highly variable, surface antigen involved in the adhesion to host cells. We have analysed the structure of the vaa locus to elucidate the genetic basis for variation of vaa. Mapping of vaa on existing physical maps of five M. hominis isolates by pulsed field gel electrophoresis revealed that vaa is located in a genomic region containing the majority of other characterized membrane protein genes of M. hominis. Sequencing of an 11 kb region containing the vaa locus of M. hominis isolate 132 showed the presence of conserved housekeeping genes at the borders of the region, uvrA upstream and the hitABL operon downstream to vaa. Analysis of 20 M. hominis isolates revealed that the vaa upstream region was conserved whereas the downstream region was highly variable. In isolate 132 this region contained an open reading frame (ORF) encoding a putative 160 kDa membrane protein. Homologous ORFs were present in half of the isolates, whereas this ORF, termed vmp (variable membrane protein), was deleted from the locus in the remaining isolates. Compellingly, the conserved upstream region and variable downstream region of vaa correlates with the genetic structure of vaa itself which consists of a conse...Continue Reading

References

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Datasets Mentioned

BETA
AJ629114
AJ629115

Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCR
electrophoresis
X-ray

Software Mentioned

TMHMM
ClustalW
RNA mfold
Genetics Computer Group (
SignalP
NetBlast
FastA
Wisconsin Package

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