Mutations in Haemophilus influenzae mismatch repair genes increase mutation rates of dinucleotide repeat tracts but not dinucleotide repeat-driven pilin phase variation rates.

ABSTRACT: High-frequency, reversible switches in expression of surface antigens, referred to as phase variation (PV), are characteristic of Haemophilus influenzae. PV enables this bacterial species, an obligate commensal and pathogen of the human upper respiratory tract, to adapt to changes in the host environment. Phase-variable hemagglutinating pili are expressed by many H. influenzae isolates. PV involves alterations in the number of 5' TA repeats located between the -10 and -35 promoter elements of the overlapping, divergently orientated promoters of hifA and hifBCDE, whose products mediate biosynthesis and assembly of pili. Dinucleotide repeat tracts are destabilized by mismatch repair (MMR) mutations in Escherichia coli. The influence of mutations in MMR genes of H. influenzae strain Rd on din

SUBMITTER: Bayliss CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC400628 | biostudies-literature | 2004 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature