Nucleotide sequence of the McrB region of Escherichia coli K-12 and evidence for two independent translational initiation sites at the mcrB locus.

The McrB restriction system of Escherichia coli K-12 is responsible for the biological inactivation of foreign DNA that contains 5-methylcytosine residues (E. A. Raleigh and G. Wilson, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83:9070-9074, 1986). Within the McrB region of the chromosome is the mcrB gene, which encodes a protein of 51 kilodaltons (kDa) (T. K. Ross, E. C. Achberger, and H. D. Braymer, Gene 61:277-289, 1987), and the mcrC gene, the product of which is 39 kDa (T. K. Ross, E. C. Achberger, and H. D. Braymer, Mol. Gen. Genet., in press). The nucleotide sequence of a 2,695-base-pair segment encompassing the McrB region was determined. The deduced amino acid sequence was used to identify two open reading frames specifying peptides of 455 and 348 amino acids, corresponding to the products of the mcrB and mcrC genes, respectively. A single-nucleotide overlap was found to exist between the termination codon of the mcrB gene and the proposed initiation codon of the mcrC gene. The presence of an additional peptide of 33 kDa in strains containing various recombinant plasmids with portions of the McrB region has been reported by Ross et al. (Gene 61:277-289, 1987). The analysis of frameshift and deletion mutants of one such hybrid plasmid, pRAB-13, provided evidence for a second translational initiation site within the McrB open reading frame. The proposed start codon for translation of the 33-kDa peptide lies 481 nucleotides downstream from the initiation codon for the 51-kDa mcrB gene product. The 33-kDa peptide may play a regulatory role in the McrB restriction of DNA containing 5-methylcytosine.