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Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.01669-06
Copyright (c) 2006, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Identification and characterization of CTn86 and CTn9343 elements in Bacteroides fragilis strains

Division of Infectious Diseases and Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, and Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: afranco{at}jhem.jhmi.edu.

	Abstract

The related genetic elements flanking the B. fragilis pathogenicity island (BfPAI) in enterotoxigenic B. fragilis (ETBF) 86-5443-2-2 and also present in pattern III non-toxigenic (NTBF) NCTC 9343 were defined as putative conjugative transposons (CTns), designated CTn86 and CTn9343, respectively (Franco, A. A. 2004. J. Bacteriol. 181:6623-6633). CTn86 and CTn9343 have the same basic structure except that their encoded transposases share low similarity and CTn9343 lacks the BfPAI and contains an extra 7 kb region not present in CTn86. In this study using DNA hybridization and PCR analysis, we characterized the genetic element flanking the BfPAI in a collection of ETBF and related genetic elements in a collection of NTBF pattern III strains. We found that in all 123 ETBF strains the BfPAI is contained in a genetic element similar to CTn86. Of 73 pattern III strains, 26 (36%) present a genetic element similar to CTn9343, 38 (52%) present a genetic element similar to CTn9343 but lack the 7 kb region that is also absent in CTn86 (CTn9343-like element), and 9 (12%) present a genetic element similar to CTn86 but lacking the BfPAI (CTn86-like element). In addition to containing CTn86, ETBF strains can also contain a CTn9343, CTn9343-like or CTn86-like elements. CTn86, CTn9343, CTn86-like and CTn9343-like elements were found exclusively in B. fragilis strains and predominantly in Division I, cepA-positive strains.

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