Staphylococci on ICE: Overlooked Agents of Horizontal Gene Transfer

Overview

Journal Mob Genet Elements

Date 2017 Sep 22

PMID 28932624

Citations 19

Authors

Emily A Sansevere

D Ashley Robinson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Horizontal gene transfer plays a significant role in spreading antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes throughout the genus , which includes species of clinical relevance to humans and animals. While phages and plasmids are the most well-studied agents of horizontal gene transfer in staphylococci, the contribution of integrative conjugative elements (ICEs) has been mostly overlooked. Experimental work demonstrating the activity of ICEs in staphylococci remained frozen for years after initial work in the 1980s that showed Tn was capable of transfer from to . However, recent work has begun to thaw this field. To date, 2 families of ICEs have been identified among staphylococci - Tn that includes the Tn subfamily, and ICE that includes at least 7 subfamilies. Both Tn and ICE commonly occur in clinical strains of . Tn is the most studied of the Tn family elements in staphylococci and encodes tetracycline resistance and a protein that, when expressed in , inhibits restriction barriers to incoming DNA. ICE is among the shortest known ICEs, but it still includes many uncharacterized open reading frames. This element uses an IS-like transposase as its recombinase, providing some versatility in integration sites. ICE also conjugatively transfers among receptive strains at relatively higher frequency than Tn. Continued study of these mobile genetic elements may reveal the full extent to which ICEs impact horizontal gene transfer and the evolution of staphylococci.

Citing Articles

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