Three highly mutable loci of the wall-less pathogens Mycoplasma bovis, Mycoplasma pulmonis and Mycoplasma agalactiae undergo high-frequency genomic rearrangements and generate extensive antigenic variation of major surface lipoproteins. Adjacent to each locus, an open reading frame exists as a single chromosomal copy and is predicted to encode a site-specific DNA recombinase exhibiting high homology to the recombinases XerD of Escherichia coli and CodV of Bacillus subtilis. Each of the mycoplasmal proteins are members of the λ integrase family of tyrosine site-specific recombinases and likely mediates site-specific DNA inversions observed within the adjacent, variable loci. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
