The Sinorhizobium meliloti insertion sequence (IS) element ISRm14 is related to a previously unrecognized IS element located adjacent to the Escherichia coli locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) pathogenicity island.

ISRm14 is 2695 basepairs (bp) in size and bordered by 22 bp imperfect inverted repeats (IRs). A 9-bp target sequence is duplicated upon ISRm14 transposition. The DNA strand that putatively encodes the transposase enzyme carries three open reading frames (ORFs) designated ORFs1 to 3, which specify putative proteins of 15. 9 kDa, 13.1 kDa, and 61.1 kDa, respectively. According to its structural characteristics, ISRm14 belongs to the recently proposed IS66 family of IS elements. The ORFs1 to 3 encoded putative proteins displayed significant similarities to ORFs of the previously unrecognized IS element ISEc8, which is inserted adjacent to the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) pathogenicity island of Escherichia coli EDL933. Analyses of the distribution of ISRm14 in a natural S. meliloti population showed its widespread occurrence in 66% of the strains tested with a copy number ranging from 1 to 6.