期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1987
卷号：84
期号：8
页码：2165-2169
DOI：10.1073/pnas.84.8.2165
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Most small multicopy antibiotic-resistance plasmids of Staphylococcus aureus contain a major axis of hyphenated dyad symmetry (palA) that is required for normal replication and stability, although located outside of the minimal replicon. Rearrangements affecting palA cause plasmid instability, a marked reduction in copy number, and the accumulation of large quantities of strand-specific circular single-stranded plasmid DNA. In view of the recent observation that pT181 initiates replication by a nick and 3'-extension mechanism (S. Khan, personal communication), it is suggested that these plasmids replicate by an asymmetric rolling-circle mechanism in which the displaced plus strand remains single stranded until palA is exposed, forming a hairpin that serves as the lagging strand origin.
