An invertible element of DNA controls phase variation of type 1 fimbriae of Escherichia coli.
Abstract
The expression of type 1 fimbriae (pili) of Escherichia coli is turned on and off at the transcriptional level at a high frequency (10(-3) per cell per generation) in a process termed phase variation. Using Southern blot and DNA sequence analysis, we have detected a genomic rearrangement in the switch region immediately upstream of the fimbrial structural gene. This rearrangement involves an invertible 314-base-pair segment of DNA whose alternating orientation apparently results in the on-and-off activation of a promoter that determines the state of fimbrial expression.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- September 1985
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.82.17.5724
- Bibcode:
- 1985PNAS...82.5724A