Transposition of Insertion Sequences was Triggered by Oxidative Stress in Radiation-Resistant Bacterium Deinococcus geothermalis

During an oxidative stress-response assay on a putative Dps-like gene-disrupted Δdgeo_0257 mutant strain of radiation-resistant bacterium Deinococcus geothermalis, a non-pigmented colony was observed among the normal reddish color colonies. This non-pigmented mutant cell subsequently displayed higher sensitivity to H(2)O(2). While carotenoid has a role in protecting as scavenger of reactive oxygen species the reddish wild-type strain from radiation and oxidative stresses, it is hypothesized that the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway has been disrupted in the mutant D. geothermalis cell. Here, we show that, in the non-pigmented mutant cell of interest, phytoene desaturase (Dgeo_0524, crtI), a key enzyme in carotenoid biosynthesis, was interrupted by transposition of an ISDge7 family member insertion sequence (IS) element. RNA-Seq analysis between wild-type and Δdgeo_0257 mutant strains revealed that the expression level of ISDge5 family transposases, but not ISDge7 family members, were substantially up-regulated in the Δdgeo_0257 mutant strain. We revealed that the non-pigmented strain resulted from the genomic integration of ISDge7 family member IS elements, which were also highly up-regulated, particularly following oxidative stress. The transposition path for both transposases is a replicative mode. When exposed to oxidative stress in the absence of the putative DNA binding protein Dgeo_0257, a reddish D. geothermalis strain became non-pigmented. This transformation was facilitated by transposition of an ISDge7 family IS element into a gene encoding a key enzyme of carotenoid biosynthesis. Further, we present evidence of additional active transposition by the ISDge5 family IS elements, a gene that was up-regulated during the stationary phase regardless of the presence of oxidative stress.