recE4-Independent recombination between homologous deoxyribonucleic acid segments of Bacillus subtilis plasmids.

A plasmid (pLS104) carrying a tandem repetition of the leu region of the Bacillus subtilis chromosome arose spontaneously from pLS103, which carried a single copy of the leu region. Plasmid preparations from strains harboring pLS104 also contained the original plasmid, pLS103, and, in some preparations, plasmids carrying three or four repetitions of the leu region. These plasmids were shown to be generated by recombination between homologous deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) segments in the tandemly repeated DNA regions on the plasmids, but not by recombinations between specific DNA sites. These phenomena were observed in a recE4-Independent background, showing that recombination of the homologous DNA sequences does not require the recE-Independent gene product(s).