Bacterial mating, or conjugation, is the transfer of DNA from one bacterium to another by direct cell-to-cell contact through a mating pore. Mating allows bacteria to gain genes that provide for new functions and adaptations to environmental changes. ICEBs1 is an integrative and conjugative element (ICE) in Bacillus subtilis. ICEBs1 contains 25 putative genes, several of which (conB, conC, conD, conE, and conG) are required for conjugative transfer of ICEBs1 and may encode components of the mating pore. Most of these genes encode transmembrane proteins and share homology to genes found in other Gram-positive conjugation systems. In this study, we show that these genes are required to mobilize, or transfer, a plasmid from one B. subtilis cell to another. Thus, our data further support the hypothesis that these genes encode proteins that make up the ICEBs1 bacterial mating pore.

Discovery of genes required for bacterial DNA transfer

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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