Mycobacterium bovis BCG moreau is naturally deficient in homologous recombination

Abstract The ability to perform genetic manipulation of mycobacteria is important for characterization of gene function. Homologous recombination-based protocols are frequently used for reverse genetics studies with mycobacteria. It is known that Mycobacterium bovis BCG Russia, closely related to M. bovis BCG Moreau, is a natural recA deficient strain and is non-permissive to homologous recombination assays. In this work we show that M. bovis BCG Moreau is also deficient in homologous recombination, shown by a specialized transduction assay, but this phenotype can be reverted by complementation with heterologous recombinases, using a recombineering protocol. Sequence analysis of the genes known to be involved in homologous recombination annotated in the genome of BCG Moreau detected no differences compared to the genome of BCG Pasteur. Further studies are needed in order to determine the exact mechanism underlying this deficiency in BCG Moreau.