Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 101, Issue 49, Pages 17056-17060Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0408046101
Keywords
genetic recombination; phage lambda
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Funding
- NIGMS NIH HHS [R37-GM33504] Funding Source: Medline
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Studies of phage A in vivo have indicated that its own recombination enzymes,beta protein and A exonuclease, are capable of catalyzing two dissimilar pathways of homologous recombination that are widely distributed in nature: single-strand annealing and strand invasion. The former is an enzymatic splicing of overlapping ends of broken homologous DNA molecules, whereas the latter is characterized by the formation of a three-stranded synaptic intermediate and subsequent strand exchange. Previous studies in vitro have shown that beta protein has annealing activity, and that lambda exonuclease, acting on branched substrates, can produce a perfect splice that requires only ligation for completion. The present study shows that beta protein can initiate strand invasion in vitro, as evidenced both by the formation of displacement loops (D-loops) in superhelical DNA and by strand exchange between colinear single-stranded and double-stranded molecules. Thus, beta protein can catalyze steps that are central to both strand annealing and strand invasion pathways of recombination. These observations add beta protein to a set of diverse proteins that appear to promote recognition of homology by a unitary mechanism governed by the intrinsic dynamic properties of base pairs in DNA.
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