Alternative mechanisms for Tn5 transposition

Abstract

Bacterial transposons are known to move to new genomic sites using either a replicative or a conservative mechanism. The behavior of transposon Tn5 is anomalous. In vitro studies indicate that it uses a conservative mechanism while in vivo results point to a replicative mechanism. To explain this anomaly, a model is presented in which the two mechanisms are not independent - as widely believed - but could represent alternate outcomes of a common transpositional pathway. © 2009 Asad Ahmed.