Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 52, Pages 20906-20911Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1308450110
Keywords
DNA topology; tangle method; Xer recombination; band surgery; topology simplification
Categories
Funding
- Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI [22540066, 25400080]
- National Science Foundation [DMS0920887]
- National Science Foundation CAREER Grant [DMS1057284]
- UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EP/H031367]
- Australian Research Council [FT120100153]
- NHMRC [APP1005697]
- Wellcome Trust [WT099204AIA]
- Australian Research Council [FT120100153] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [22540066] Funding Source: KAKEN
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In Escherichia coli, complete unlinking of newly replicated sister chromosomes is required to ensure their proper segregation at cell division. Whereas replication links are removed primarily by topoisomerase IV, XerC/XerD-dif site-specific recombination can mediate sister chromosome unlinking in Topoisomerase IV-deficient cells. This reaction is activated at the division septum by the DNA translocase FtsK, which coordinates the last stages of chromosome segregation with cell division. It has been proposed that, after being activated by FtsK, XerC/XerD-dif recombination removes DNA links in a stepwise manner. Here, we provide a mathematically rigorous characterization of this topological mechanism of DNA unlinking. We show that stepwise unlinking is the only possible pathway that strictly reduces the complexity of the substrates at each step. Finally, we propose a topological mechanism for this unlinking reaction.
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