The complete nucleotide sequence of a small cryptic plasmid from a rumen bacterium of the genus Butyrivibrio

The complete nucleotide sequence of a plasmid, designated pRJF1, isolated from a rumen bacterium of the genus Butyrivibrio, has been determined. pRJF1 is a small plasmid (2631 bp) which shows the high AT content (64%) typical of plasmids from gram-positive organisms. Computer analysis of sequence data revealed two major open reading frames encoded on the same strand but in different frames. The smaller, ORF1 (435 bp), is preceded by Shine Dalgarno (SD) and Escherichia coli-10, -35 sequences and is predicted to encode an acidic polypeptide of 145 aa. The putative protein shows little homology to known bacterial proteins except in a small region similar to part of the Pre protein (plasmid recombination enzyme) of Bacillus plasmid pTB913. Pre proteins of the pTB913 family, however, show conservation of several amino acids in the amino terminal region of the protein that may be related to function. This pattern of amino acid conservation is not observed in ORF1. The predicted product of ORF2 (849 bp) is a basic protein of 283 as that shows significant similarity to repA gene products of plasmids from gram-negative (but not gram-positive) bacteria. No typical Shine Dalgarno sequence or -10, -35 sequences precede this coding region. While sequence homologous to nick sites of plasmids from gram-positive organisms that replicate via ssDNA intermediates were also detected in pRJF1, the order of the three consecutive inverted repeats typical of nick sites is not conserved. pRJF1, however, does contain an extended region of directly and inversely repeated sequence motifs reminiscent of theta replication origins.