Catabolic Transposons

Overview

Journal Biodegradation

Specialties Biochemistry
Environmental Health

Date 1994 Dec 1

PMID 7765841

Citations 37

Authors

R C Wyndham

A E Cashore

C H Nakatsu

M C Peel

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The structure and function of transposable elements that code for catabolic pathways involved in the biodegradation of organic compounds are reviewed. Seven of these catabolic transposons have structural features that place them in the Class I (composite) or Class II (Tn3-family) bacterial elements. One is a conjugative transposon. Another three have been found to have properties of transposable elements but have not been characterized sufficiently to assign to a known class. Structural features of the toluene (Tn4651/Tn4653) and naphthalene (Tn4655) elements that illustrate the enormous potential for acquisition, deletion and rearrangement of DNA within catabolic transposons are discussed. The recently characterized chlorobenzoate (Tn5271) and chlorobenzene (Tn5280) catabolic transposons encode different aromatic ring dioxygenases, however they both illustrate the constraints that must be overcome when recipients of catabolic transposons assemble and regulate complete metabolic pathways for environmental pollutants. The structures of the chlorobenzoate catabolic transposon Tn5271 and the related haloacetate dehalogenase catabolic element of plasmid pUO1 are compared and a hypothesis for their formation is discussed. The structures and activities of catabolic transposons of unknown class coding for the catabolism of halogenated alkanoic acids (DEH) and chlorobiphenyl (Tn4371) are also reviewed.

Citing Articles

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Dissemination of metaldehyde catabolic pathways is driven by mobile genetic elements in Proteobacteria.

Castro-Gutierrez V, Fuller E, Garcillan-Barcia M, Helgason T, Hassard F, Moir J Microb Genom. 2022; 8(10).

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Plasmid-Mediated Bioaugmentation for the Bioremediation of Contaminated Soils.

Garbisu C, Garaiyurrebaso O, Epelde L, Grohmann E, Alkorta I Front Microbiol. 2017; 8:1966.

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Ribosomal frameshifting and dual-target antiactivation restrict quorum-sensing-activated transfer of a mobile genetic element.

Ramsay J, Tester L, Major A, Sullivan J, Edgar C, Kleffmann T Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015; 112(13):4104-9.

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Genome features of Pseudomonas putida LS46, a novel polyhydroxyalkanoate producer and its comparison with other P. putida strains.

Sharma P, Fu J, Zhang X, Fristensky B, Sparling R, Levin D AMB Express. 2014; 4:37.

PMID: 25401060 PMC: 4230813. DOI: 10.1186/s13568-014-0037-8.

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