[Unequal crossing-over in conjugated crossings in Escherichia coli K-12]

A genetic model has been developed allowing to study non-equal crossingover in conjugative crossings of Escherichia coli. The model is based on obtaining tandem duplications in the region of the deo operon of E. coli in conjugative crosses Hfr x Hfr. It was shown that when using transposon (Tn5, Tn10) genetic markers the majority of recombinant progeny phenotypically corresponding to rare 2-crossover and 4-crossover recombinants for the deo operon constitute direct tandem duplications resulting from non-equal interchromosomal exchange. Apart from the deo operon, the duplications obtained cover, in some cases, linked thr and leu loci. In the crosses, where point mutations for genes of the deo operon served as genetic markers, the frequency of duplications' formation was lower than that of rare 2-crossover and 4-crossover recombinants' formation. Evolutionary role of the non-equal crossingover phenomenon in E. coli is discussed.