Abstract
The centromere sequence parC of Escherichia coli low-copy-number plasmid R1 consists of two sets of 11 bp iterated sequences. Here we analysed the intrinsic sequence-directed curvature of parC by its migration anomaly in polyacrylamide gels. The 159 bp long parC is strongly curved with anomaly values (k-factors) close to 2. The properties of the parC curvature agree with those of other curved DNA sequences. parC contains two regions of 5-fold repeated iterons separated by 39 bp. We modified 4 bp within this intermediate sequence so that we could analyse the two 5-fold repeated regions independently. The analysis shows that the two repeat regions are not independently curved parts of parC but that the overall curvature is a property of the whole fragment. Since the centromere sequence of an E.coli plasmid as well as eukaryotic centromere sequences show DNA curvature, we speculate that curvature might be a general property of centromeres.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | Nucleic Acids Research |
| Vol/bind | 32 |
| Udgave nummer | 19 |
| Sider (fra-til) | 5907-5915 |
| Antal sider | 9 |
| ISSN | 0305-1048 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2004 |
| Udgivet eksternt | Ja |