Conjugation is a key mechanism of bacterial evolution that involves mobile genetic elements. Recent findings indicated that the main actors of conjugative transfer are not the well-known conjugative or mobilizable plasmids but are the integrated elements. This paper reviews current knowledge on “integrative and mobilizable elements” (IMEs) that have recently been shown to be highly diverse and highly widespread but are still rarely described. IMEs encode their own excision and integration and use the conjugation machinery of unrelated co-resident conjugative element for their own transfer. Recent studies revealed a much more complex and much more diverse lifecycle than initially thought. Besides their main transmission as integrated elements, IMEs probably use plasmid-like strategies to ensure their maintenance after excision. Their interaction with conjugative elements reveals not only harmless hitchhikers but also hunters that use conjugative elements as target for their integration or harmful parasites that subvert the conjugative apparatus of incoming elements to invade cells that harbor them. IMEs carry genes conferring various functions, such as resistance to antibiotics, that can enhance the fitness of their hosts and that contribute to their maintenance in bacterial populations. Taken as a whole, IMEs are probably major contributors to bacterial evolution.

Integration of foreign DNA was observed in the Gram-positive human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) after transformation with DNA from a recombinant Escherichia coli bacteriophage carrying a pneumococcal insert. Segments of DNA replaced chromosomal sequences adjacent to the region homologous with the pneumococcal insert, whence the name insertion-deletion. Here we report that a pneumococcal insert was absolutely required for insertion-deletion formation, but could be as short as 153 bp; that the sizes of foreign DNA insertions (289 -2,474 bp) and concomitant chromosomal deletions (45-1,485 bp) were not obviously correlated; that novel joints clustered preferentially within segments of high GC content; and that the crossovers in 29 independent novel joints were located 1 bp from the border or within short (3-10 nt long) stretches of identity (microhomology) between resident and foreign DNA. The data are consistent with a model in which the insert serving as a homologous recombination anchor favors interaction and subsequent illegitimate recombination events at microhomologies between foreign and resident sequences. The potential of homologydirected illegitimate recombination for genome evolution was illustrated by the trapping of functional heterologous genes. G enetic transformation, which was discovered in the Grampositive Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) (1), is believed to play a central role in the biology of this human pathogen through its contribution to genetic plasticity (see ref.2 for a review). Transformation with naked DNA allows intraspecies and interspecies gene transfer. As such exchanges involve homologous recombination, they are generally ''conservative,'' i.e., they do not result in the creation of novel sequences but simply in a redistribution of previously existing genes. However, a pre-existing gene also can be modified when the two interacting sequences are partly divergent. Homologous recombination then leads to the production of mosaic genes, as exemplified in the case of the pbp genes of S. pneumoniae that encode altered penicillin-binding proteins with decreased affinity for ␤-lactam antibiotics (see ref. 3 for a review).Besides these conservative facets of transformation, is there any potential for the creation of novel sequence combinations or genes? The observation that transformation with chimeric donor DNA is mutagenic (4) suggested that shuffling and reassembly of previously unrelated sequences could readily occur in S. pneumoniae. The chimeric DNA extracted from a recombinant Escherichia coli bacteriophage carrying a pneumococcal insert produced illegitimate recombinants at a frequency of about 0.5% that of homologous recombinants (4). Illegitimate recombinants resulted from simultaneous insertion of heterologous vector (i.e., ) sequences and deletion of chromosomal sequences adjacent to the region homologous to the insert. These illegitimate events were therefore termed insertion-deletions (InsDels). As the pneumococcal insert in the chimeric donor seemed r...

Streptococcus suis is a zoonotic pathogen suspected to be a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes. The genomes of 214 strains of 27 serotypes were screened for AMR genes and chromosomal Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs), in particular Integrative Conjugative Elements (ICEs) and Integrative Mobilizable Elements (IMEs). The functionality of two ICEs that host IMEs carrying AMR genes was investigated by excision tests and conjugation experiments. In silico search revealed 416 ICE-related and 457 IME-related elements. These MGEs exhibit an impressive diversity and plasticity with tandem accretions, integration of ICEs or IMEs inside ICEs and recombination between the elements. All of the detected 393 AMR genes are carried by MGEs. As previously described, ICEs are major vehicles of AMR genes in S. suis. Tn5252-related ICEs also appear to carry bacteriocin clusters. Furthermore, whereas the association of IME-AMR genes has never been described in S. suis, we found that most AMR genes are actually carried by IMEs. The autonomous transfer of an ICE to another bacterial species (Streptococcus thermophilus)—leading to the cis-mobilization of an IME carrying tet(O)—was obtained. These results show that besides ICEs, IMEs likely play a major role in the dissemination of AMR genes in S. suis.