A Bacillus subtilis 168 strain carrying an inversion of about 1600 kb-long chromosomal DNA was isolated. Physical and genetic analyses demonstrated that the inversion was generated as a result of homologous recombination between two homologous sequences integrated at the met and leuB loci. This is the first clear evidence of a large stable chromosomal inversion induced by homologous recombination in B. subtilis.
