e. acquire another function when surface-associated (Jeffery, 2009), remains unclear. Current research is ongoing in our lab to determine its precise role on the surface of lactobacilli. In conclusion, the data presented here show that NTD from L. fermentum can be added to a growing list of enzymes that one would expect to see only in the cytoplasm, but which have been detected on the cell surface (Granato et al., 2004). It is not known how these anchorless proteins cross the

cytoplasmic membrane. They are thought to bind to the cell surface through non-covalent interactions and, thus, can be extracted by buffers or released into the culture medium. To our knowledge, we are the first to confirm experimentally the localization of an essential deoxynucleoside buy BGB324 catabolic enzyme that has dual location both

in the cytoplasm and on the surface in L. fermentum. The results reported here may serve as the basis for further work to characterize the surface-associated NTD, identify the specific roles of surface-associated NTDs small molecule library screening in nucleoside metabolism or the extracellular environment, and also determine the surface-association mechanisms of the anchorless proteins. We express our gratitude to Professor Jan Martinussen (Center for Systems Microbiology, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark) and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions, and to Professor Li Ying (Center of Biomedical Analysis, Tsinghua STK38 University) for her excellent technical assistance. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation for Fostering Talents in Basic Research of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. J1030622),

National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20876088), and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2010AA09Z405). The nucleotide sequence reported in this paper has been submitted to the GenBank with accession number JF331655. “
“Insertion sequences (IS) are important drivers of bacterial evolution. Here, we report a previously undescribed IS element (ISPst4) in Pseudomonas stutzeri, and its unusual interaction with plasmids introduced into this species. Transformation of the pUC19 derivative plasmid pUS23 into P. stutzeri yielded ampicillin-resistant transformants in P. stutzeri, but these grew very poorly. Plasmids recovered from the transformants frequently contained insertions of the IS elements ISPst4 and ISPst5. Hybridisation analysis showed that these two IS elements were common in P. stutzeri strains, but were not found in other pseudomonads. Insertions of ISPst4 in pUS23 were found predominantly between bla and oriV, and plasmids with this type of insertion were capable of robust replication in P. stutzeri, unlike pUS23.