Sequence diversity of intervening sequences (IVSs) in the 23S ribosomal RNA in Salmonella spp.

Intervening sequences (IVSs) occur sporadically in the rrl (ribosomal RNA large) genes for 23S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) at helix-25 (base pair 550) and helix 45 (base pair 1170) in several bacterial genera, including Salmonella, Yersinia, Proteus, and Providencia, representing the Enterobacteriaceae, but are missing from other genera such as Escherichia. These sequences are transcribed, but later excised without re-ligation during RNaseIII processing of the rRNA, resulting in fragmented 23S rRNA. The IVSs from 22 strains of the SARB (Salmonella Reference Collection B) set were amplified by PCR and sequenced.IVSs with 90% or more sequence identity were placed in the same family; Salmonella has three families of IVSs in helix-25 (A, B, and C) and two in helix-45 (M and O). The rRNA secondary structure for the IVSs predicted from the mfold program reveals a primary stem of about 14bp, which is the postulated RNaseIII cleavage site, and a secondary region of stems and loops. The primary stem is considerably well conserved, with a high rate of compensatory mutations (positional covariants), confirming the reality of the secondary structure and indicating that removal of the IVSs exerts a positive selective pressure to retain the secondary structure. The pattern of possession and presence of families of IVSs was diverse and could not be related to the proposed ancestry of the strains as revealed by the multi-locus enzyme electrophoresis pattern of the strains, suggesting that the IVSs are transferred between strains by lateral transfer. Helix-25 IVSs from families A, B, and C of Salmonella and D of Proteus, which share almost identical primary stems, are placed in superfamily I, while the primary stems of other IVSs from Proteus and Providencia are unrelated to superfamily I and are thus placed into superfamily II; this indicates lateral transfer of members of superfamily I between Proteus and Salmonella, but an independent origin of IVSs of superfamily II in Proteus and Providencia.