Characterization of a plasmid replicative origin from an extreme thermophile

The minimal replicative origin from a 16-kbp natural plasmid of Thermus sp. ATCC 27737 is described. The 1798-bp sequence encodes a single protein (RepA) whose expression is required for replication. This requirement is extended to 200 bp upstream the coding region, which contains promoter-like sequences transcriptionally active in E. coli. Despite the absence of typical iterons, we show that an N-terminal fragment of this protein binds to a DNA fragment internal to its own coding sequence. As this DNA fragment contains an unusually A + T rich sequence surrounded by C + G rich stretches, the possible location of the replicative origin within the region encoding RepA is proposed.