Summary
The archaebacterium Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum Marburg (DSM 2133) was found to contain a plasmid (pME2001) in covalently closed circular form. It was isolated by CsCl gradient centrifugation of total DNA in the presence of ethidium bromide. Multimers up to the hexamer were observed upon agarose gel electrophoresis and electron microscopy of a purified plasmid perparation. A restriction map was constructed. The length of plasmid pME2001 was determined to be approximately 4,500 bp. Southern hybridization of plasmid DNA to DNA extracted from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum ΔH (DSM1053) revealed the presence of a plasmid with homologous sequences in the ΔH strain.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Balch WE, Fox GE, Magrum LJ, Woese CR, Wolfe RS (1979) Methanogens: Reevaluation of a unique biological group. Microb Rev 43:260–296
Bedbrook JR, Ausubel FM (1976) Recombination between plasmids leading to the formation of plasmid multimers. Cell 9:707–716
Brandis A, Thauer RK, Stetter KO (1981) Relatedness of strains ΔH and Marburg of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum. Zentral Bakteriol Parasitenk Infektionskr Hyg Abt 1:Orig Reihe C2:311–317
Davis RW, Botstein D, Roth JR (1980) In: Advanced bacterial genetics, p. 116–117. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Fox GE, Stackebrandt E, Hespell RB, Gibson J, Maniloff J, Dyer TA, Wolfe RS, Balch WE, Tanner RS, Magrum LJ, Zablen LB, Blakemore R, Gupta R, Bonen L, Lewis BJ, Stahl DA, Luehrsen KR, Chen KN, Woese CR (1980) The phylogeny of prokaryotes. Science 209:457–463
Fuchs G, Stupperich E, Thauer RK (1978) Acetate assimilitation and the synthesis of alanine, aspartate and glutamate in Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum. Arch Microbiol 117:61–66
Hintermann G, Fischer H-M, Crameri R, Hütter R (1981) Simple procedure for distinguishing ccc, oc and 1 forms of plasmid DNA by agarose gel electrophoresis. Plasmid 5:371–373
Jones JB, Stadtman TC (1981) Selenium-dependent and selenium-independent formate dehydrogenase of Methanococcus vannielii. J Biol Chem 256:656–663
Kandler O (1982) Cell wall structures and their phylogenetic implications. Zentralbl Bakteriol Parsitenk Infektionskr Hyg Abt 1:Orig Reihe C3:149–160
Kleinschmidt AK (1968) Monolayer techniques in electron microscopy of nucleic acid molecules. Methods Enzymol 12B:361–377
Kennedy KE, Meyer J, Stålhammar-Carlemalm M, Hiestand-Nauer R, Arber W (1983) Genome fusion mediated by the site specific DNA inversion system of bacteriophage Pl. Mol Gen Genet: in press
Pfeifer F, Weidinger G, Goebel W (1981) Characterization of plasmids in halobacteria. J Bacteriol 145:369–374
Potter H, Dressler D (1977) On the mechanism of genetic recombination: The maturation of recombination intermediates. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 4168–4172
Rigby PWJ, Dieckmann M, Rhodes C, Berg P (1977) Labeling deoxyribonucleic acid to high specific activity in vitro by nick translation with DNA polymerase I. J Mol Biol 113:237–251
Schnabel H, Zillig W, Pfäffle M, Schnabel R, Michel H, Delius H (1982) Halobacterium halobium phage ΦH. EMBO J 1:87–92
Schönheit P, Moll J, Thauer RK (1979) Nickel, cobalt and molybdenum requirement for growth of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum. Arch Microbiol 123:105–107
Simon RD (1978) Halobacterium strain 5 contains a plasmid which is correlated with the presence of gas vacuoles. Nature (London) 273:314–317
Southern EM (1975) Detection of specific sequences among DNA fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. J Mol Biol 98:503–517
Stanisich VA, Bennett PM, Richmond MH (1977) Characterization of a translocation unit encoding resistance to mercuric ions that occurs on a nonconjugative plasmid in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. J Bacteriol 129:1227–1233
Sutcliffe JG (1978) pBR322 restriction map derived from the DNA sequence: accurate DNA size markers up to 4361 nucleotide pairs long. Nucl Acids Res 5:2721–2728
Thomm M, Altenbuchner J, Stetter KO (1983) Evidence for a plasmid in a methanogenic bacterium. J Bacteriol 153:1060–1063
Torsvik T, Dundas ID (1974) Bacteriophage of Halobacterium salinarium. Nature (London) 248:680–681
Wais AC, Kon M, MacDonald RE, Stollar BD (1975) Salt-dependent bacteriophage infecting Halobacterium cutirubrum and H. halobium. Nature (London) 256:314–315
Yeats S, McWilliam P, Zillig W (1982) A plasmid in the archaebacterium Sulfolobus acidocaldarius. EMBO J 1:1035–1038
Zieg J, Hilmen M, Simon M (1978) Regulation of gene expresson by site-specific inversion. Cell 15:237–244
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by A. Böck
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meile, L., Kiener, A. & Leisinger, T. A plasmid in the archaebacterium Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum . Molec. Gen. Genet. 191, 480–484 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00425766
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00425766