Horizontal transfer of chromosomal DNA between the marine bacterium Vibrio furnissii and Escherichia coli revealed by sequence analysis.

Previous in silico analysis of the 67.4-76.0 minutes region of the Escherichia coli genome led to the identification of a gene cluster (named aga) comprising five genes encoding homologs of the mannose transporter of E. coli, a member of the sugar-specific phosphoenolypyruvate/sugar phosphotransferase system (PTS). In the present work, we compared the aga gene cluster of E. coli, which has been considered to be involved in N-acetylgalactosamine or N-acetylmannosamine transport and metabolism, to the region comprising the recently identified mannose transporter of the marine bacterium Vibrio furnissii. Our analysis revealed that the proteins encoded by three genes (agaV, agaW, and agaA), located in the proximal portion of the aga gene cluster, shared striking similarities with the proteins encoded by the manX (IIBMan), manY (IICMan), and manD (a putative deacetylase) genes of V. furnissii, respectively (70%-82.3% identity among the three pairs of proteins). Moreover, we found that the two following aga genes (agaS and agaY) were homologous to the sequences flanking the mannose operon of V. furnissii. These observations strongly support the idea of a horizontal transfer of the chromosomally encoded man operon of V. furnissii into the E. coli genome.