High diversity and variability of pipolins among a wide range of pathogenicEscherichia colistrains

Abstract

31 32 Self-synthesizing transposons are integrative mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that 33 encode their own B-family DNA polymerase (PolB). Discovered a few years ago, they 34 are proposed as key players in the evolution of several groups of DNA viruses and 35 virus-host interaction machinery. Pipolins are the most recent addition to the group, are 36 integrated in the genomes of bacteria from diverse phyla and also present as circular 37 plasmids in mitochondria. Remarkably, pipolins-encoded PolBs are proficient DNA 38 polymerases endowed with DNA priming capacity, hence the name, primer-

Evolutionary Pathways and Trajectories in Antibiotic Resistance

“…A fascinating example of how interactions between MGEs affect their horizontal transmission is the arms race between phages and pathogenicity islands in Staphylococcus aureus, in which both elements compete using a complex repertoire of molecular interactions packaged in the phage capsid (941). Other exemples of interactions among MGEs occurs among pipolins, self-synthesizing transposons encoding replicative B DNA polymerases), which can be present in E. coli, but not involved in antibotic resistance, and other integrative MGEs as integrons (942).…”