This chapter talks about four different families of transposable DNA elements and describes
how transposon‐mediated recombination molds the organization of the bacterial …

The transposable elements of bacteria are diverse in size, functional arrangement, DNA
sequence, and in their modes of transposition. We review here data suggesting that the …

Bacteria contain a large number of transposable elements that can be categorized in four
major groups according to their mechanisms of transposition. These are: class I: insertion …

Transposable elements (TEs) have been defined as DNA sequences able to insert at many
sites in the genome. At present there are about 500 TEs identified in many different bacterial …

Transposable elements induce spontaneous mutations, promote genome rearrangements,
regulate gene expression, and participate in the horizontal spread of genes encoding traits …

The defining characteristic of bacterial transposons is their ability to move to new loci in the
absence of extensive DNA sequence homology. Some, designated IS elements, contain …

The Tn3 family of transposable elements is probably the most successful group of mobile
DNA elements in bacteria: there are many different but related members and they are widely …

Tn 10 and Tn5 are composite bacterial transposons (Fig. 1). Both these transposons, as well
as their respective IS elements (IS10 and IS50), transpose by a nonreplicative cut‐and …

The bacterial transposon Tn7 is an unusual mobile DNA segment. Most transposable
elements move at low‐frequency and display little target site‐selectivity. By contrast, Tn7 …