Contamination of Escherichia coli insertion element DNA sequences in human genome databases

Shigenobu TONE; Satomi HATADA; Yohsuke MINATOGAWA; Keiko KURIHARA; Michinori KOHARA; Toshikazu KUBO; Tomo KAWASHIMA; Takashi OHYAMA

doi:10.2978/jsas.13.537

Shigenobu TONE, Satomi HATADA, Yohsuke MINATOGAWA, Keiko KURIHARA, Michinori KOHARA, Toshikazu KUBO, Tomo KAWASHIMA, Takashi OHYAMA

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Keywords: human genome database, insertion elements, bent DNA

JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2001 Volume 13 Issue 4 Pages 537-540

DOI https://doi.org/10.2978/jsas.13.537

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Abstract

During investigation of the molecular mechanism of large DNA fragmentation in apoptosis, we found that one of our clones, which were derived from 30kb DNA fragments generated from heat-treated human cells, mached perfectly with many sequences in E. coli genomic DNA, E. coli cDNA, a Neiserria plasmid, and several human genomic DNAs and cDNAs. All had exactly the same 153bp sequence. In fact, 1147bp DNA, containing the 153bp sequence, was apparently shared between human chromosomes 12, 13, and 21 and E. coli. This DNA was identified as E. coli insertion element 5. We need to pay carefull attention to such contaminations in genome data bases.

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