Lesion-Induced Mutation in the Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius and Its Avoidance by the Y-Family DNA Polymerase Dbh.

Genetic stability in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

The Y-family DNA polymerase Dpo4 uses a template slippage mechanism to create single-base deletions.

The Y-family polymerases help cells tolerate DNA damage by performing translesion synthesis, yet they also can be highly error prone. One distinctive feature of the DinB class of Y-family polymerases is that they make single-base deletion errors at high frequencies in repetitive sequences, especially those that contain two or more identical pyrimidines with a 5' flanking guanosine. Intriguingly...

Molecular characteristics of spontaneous deletions in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

Prokaryotic genomes acquire and eliminate blocks of DNA sequence by lateral gene transfer and spontaneous deletion, respectively. The basic parameters of spontaneous deletion, which are expected to influence the course of genome evolution, have not been determined for any hyperthermophilic archaeon. We therefore screened a number of independent pyrimidine auxotrophs of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius...

UV stimulation of chromosomal marker exchange in Sulfolobus acidocaldarius: implications for DNA repair, conjugation and homologous recombination at extremely high temperatures.

The hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius exchanges and recombines chromosomal markers by a conjugational mechanism, and the overall yield of recombinants is greatly increased by previous exposure to UV light. This stimulation was studied in an effort to clarify its mechanism and that of marker exchange itself. A variety of experiments failed to identify a significant effect of U...

Genetic fidelity under harsh conditions: analysis of spontaneous mutation in the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

Microbes whose genomes are encoded by DNA and for which adequate information is available display similar genomic mutation rates (average 0.0034 mutations per chromosome replication, range 0.0025 to 0.0046). However, this value currently is based on only a few well characterized microbes reproducing within a narrow range of environmental conditions. In particular, no genomic mutation rate has b...