, 1988; Versalovic et al., 1991; Bachellier et al., 1999) and later on in other prokaryotes (Aranda-Olmedo et al., 2002; Feil et al., 2005; Tobes & Pareja, 2005; Tobes & Ramos, 2005). SMAGs constitute the largest family of REPs described so far. A look at the structure and organization of SMAG elements provides information on the processes underlying the expansion and remodeling of REP families, and the functional role that REPs may play. Searches were carried out on the genomes of the S. maltophilia strains K279a (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NC_010943) and R551-3 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NC_011071)

and the 50 contigs of the strain SKA14 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NZ_ACDV00000000). The K279a genome was searched for SMAG sequences using the fuzznuc program (http://mobyle.pasteur.fr/cgi-bin/portal.py?form=fuzznuc). Selleck BAY 73-4506 Initial searches were performed using as a query the sequence described in Roscetto et al. (2008), and selecting homologous Omipalisib cell line sequences containing up to four mismatches. Sequence variants were subsequently used as queries for refined searches. Regions of interest in the R551-3 and SKA14 genomes were identified by blast. SMAG-negative regions were searched in the DNA of 25 S. maltophilia strains (92, 262, 527, 545, 549, 598, 616, 707, 714, 915, 1019, 1029, 1039, 1054, STM2, OBGTC3, OBGTC13, OBGTC16, OBGTC22, OBGTC28, OBGTC29, OBGTC30, LMG959, LMG10851 and LMG10871) by PCR and sequence analyses. The strains and

PCR conditions were described previously (Roscetto et al., 2008). Reverse transcriptase-PCR (RT-PCR) analyses were carried out by reverse transcribing total S. maltophilia RNA by random priming, and amplifying the resulting cDNA using pairs of gene-specific oligonucleotides as described (De Gregorio et al., 2005). RNAse protection and primer extension assays were carried out as described (De Gregorio et al., 2005). The sequences of all the primers used are available upon request. A thorough analysis of the chromosome of the S. maltophilia K279a strain revealed that the SMAG family

is much wider than postulated initially (Roscetto et al., 2008). K279a DNA hosts 1650 SMAG repeats, all constituted by a stem-loop sequence (SLS) flanked, at one side, by the tetranucleotide GTAG. The genomic coordinates see more of all SMAGs are reported in the Supporting Information, Table S1. The elements can be sorted, on the basis of changes in the stem and loop residues, into 40 variants. For the sake of simplicity, they have been assigned to five major subfamilies (Fig. 1a). The large SMAG-1 subfamily includes all the repeats used for genotyping (Roscetto et al., 2008). SMAG-1 to SMAG-4 repeats have 8 bp stems and SMAG-5 repeats have 9 bp stems. The S. maltophilia genome contains hundreds of DNA tracts that partly resemble SMAG sequences. We discarded complementary sequences fitting the consensuses shown in Fig. 1a, but either located 5 bp away or more, or containing more than two mismatches.