Based on three distinct traits of genomic islands, a novel approach was developed to search for and determine genomic islands in special strains. Two genomic islands in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and 7 genomic islands in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 were defined with this method. Among the 9 genomic islands, 4 islands had been characterized before, while the other 5 islands were initially determined. The insert sites of 6 genomic islands are tRNA sequences, direct repeats of PA14GI-3 are relative to tRNALeu, and direct repeats of PA14GI-2 are at the 3′ end of bifunctional GMP synthase/ glutamine amidotransferase. Only direct repeats of PA14GI-4 are not clear. Among the 5 newly-found genomic islands, it was supposed that PA14GI-2 is a genomic island related to Hg2+ uptake, PA14GI-3 is a secretory activity genomic island, PA14GI-6 is a pathogenicity island, and functions of PA14GI-1 and PA14GI-5 are not clear. Finally, the tyrosine type integrases in PAO1GI-1, PA14GI-5 and PA14GI-7 were analyzed, and their binding and restriction sites were predicted.
