Nr. Hackett et al., CONSERVATION OF CHROMOSOMAL ARRANGEMENT AMONG 3 STRAINS OF THE GENETICALLY UNSTABLE ARCHAEON HALOBACTERIUM-SALINARIUM, Journal of bacteriology, 176(24), 1994, pp. 7711-7718
Phenotypic variants of Halobacterium salinarium NRC-1 arise at a frequ
ency of 10(-2). These result from transpositions of halobacterial inse
rtion sequences and rearrangements mediated by halobacterial insertion
sequences. We have tested the hypothesis that such mutations are conf
ined to only a portion of the genome by comparing the chromosomal rest
riction map of H. salinarium NRC-1 and that of the derivative S9, whic
h was made in 1969. The two chromosomes were mapped by using two-dimen
sional pulsed-held gel electrophoresis and the restriction enzymes Afl
II, AseI, and DraI. A comparison of the two deduced maps showed a doma
in of about 210 kbp to be subject to many rearrangements, including an
inversion in So relative to NRC-1. However, the rest of the chromosom
e was conserved among NRC-I, So, and an independent Halobacterium isol
ate, GRB, previously mapped by St. Jean et al. (A. St. Jean, B. A, Tri
eselmann, and R. L. Charlebois, Nucleic Acids Res. 22:1476-1483, 1994)
. This concurs with data from eubacteria suggesting strong selective f
orces maintaining gene order even in the face of rearrangement events
occurring at a high frequency.