Summary
We have described three illegitimate recombination events associated with, but not promoted by, transposon Tn10: precise excision, nearly precise excision, and precise excision of a nearly precise excision remnant. All three are structurally analogous: excision occurs between two short direct repeat sequences, removing all intervening material plus one copy of the direct repeat. In each case, the direct repeats border a larger inverted repeat. We report here the isolation of host mutants of Escherichia coli K12 which exhibit increased frequencies of precise excision of Tn10. Nineteen of the 39 mutants have been mapped to five distinct loci on the E. coli genetic map and have been designated texA through texE (for Tn10 excision). Mapping and genetic characterization indicate that each tex gene corresponds to a previously identified gene involved in cellular DNA metabolism: recB and/or recC, uvrD, mutH, mutS, and dam. The role of these various DNA repair and recombination genes in an illegitimate recombination process such as Tn10 excision will be discussed. In addition to an increase in precise excision frequency, all 39 tex mutants display an increased frequency for nearly precise excision. However, none of the mutants are increased for the third excision event, precise excision of a nearly precise excision remnant, supporting the idea that precise and nearly precise excision occur by closely related pathways which are distinct from those pathways which promote the third type of excision event.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arthur, M., and Lloyd, R. G., 1980, Hyperrecombination in uvrD mutants of Escherichia coli K-12, Mol. Gen. Genet., 180:185.
Botstein, D., and Kleckner, N., 1977, Translocation and illegitimate recombination by the tetracycline-resistance element TnlO, in:,“DNA Insertion Elements, Plasmids and Episomes,” A. I. Bukhari, J. A. Shapiro, and S. Adhya, eds., Cold Spring Harbor, New York,
Clark, A. J., 1973, Recombination deficient mutants of Escherichia coli and other bacteria, Annu. Rev. Genet., 7:67.
De Lucia, P., and Cairns, J,, 1969, Isolation of an E, coli strain with a mutation affecting DNA polymerase, Nature, 224:1164,
Egner, C, and Berg, D., 1981, Excision of transposon Tn5 is dependent on the inverted repeats but not on the transposase function of Tn5, Proc, Natl. Acad. Sci, U.S.A., 78:459.
Emmerson, P. T., 1968, Recombination deficient mutants of Escherichia coli K12 that map between thyA and argA, Genetics, 60: 19.
Foster, T. J., Lundblad, V., Hanley-Way, S., Hailing, S. M., and Kleckner, N., 1981, Three Tn10-associated excision events: relationship to transposition and role of direct and inverted repeats, Cell, 23: 215.
Glickman, B. W., and Radman, M., 1980, Escherichia coli mutator mutants deficient in methylation-instructed DNA mismatch correction, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 77: 1063.
Goldmark, P. J., and Linn, S., 1972, Purification and properties of the recBC DNase of Escherichia coli K-12, J. Biol. Chem., 247: 1849.
Hays, J. B., and Korba, B. E., 1979, DNA from recombinogenic λ bacteriophages generated by arl mutants of Escherichia coli is cleaved by single-strand-specific endonuclease Sl, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 76: 6066.
Hill, R. F., 1970, Location of genes controlling excision repair of UV damage and mutator activity in Escherichia coli WP2, Mutat. Res., 9:341.
Hopkins, J. D., Clements, M. B., Liang, T., Isberg, T., and Syvanen, M., 1980, Recombination genes on the Escherichia coli sex factor specific for transposable elements, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 77: 2814.
Horii, Z. I., and Clark, A. J., 1973, Genetic analysis of the recF pathway to genetic recombination in Escherichia coli K-12: Isolation and characterization of mutants, J. Mol. Biol., 80: 327.
Howard-Flanders, P., and Theriot, L., 1966, Mutants of Escherichia coli K-12 defective in DNA repair and in genetic recombination, Genetics, 53: 1137.
Karu, A., Sakaki, Y., Echols, H., and Linn, S., 1974, In vitro studies of the gam gene product of bacteriophage λ, in: “Mechanisms in Recombination,” R. F. Grell, ed., Plenum Press, New York.
Kelley, William S., 1980, Mapping of the polA locus of Escherichia coli K12: genetic fine structure of the cistron, Genetics, 95: 15.
Kingsbury, D. T., and Helinski, D. R., 1975, Temperature-sensitive mutants for the replication of plasmids in E. coli. I. Isolation and specificity of host and plasmid mutations, Genetics, 74: 17.
Konrad, E. B., 1977, Method for the isolation of Escherichia coli mutants with enhanced recombination between chromosomal duplications, J. Bacteriol., 130: 162.
Kushner, S. R., Shepard, J., Edwards, G., and Marples, V. R., 1978, uvrD, uvrE and recL represent a single gene, J. Supramol. Struct. Suppl. 2: 59.
Lloyd, R. G., and Scott, H. M., 1978, A non-selective assay of recombination in Escherichia coli K-12, Soc. Gen. Microbiol. Q., 6:
Marinus, M. G., 1980, Influence of uvrD3, uvrE502, and recL152 mutations on the phenotypes of Escherichia coli K-12 dam mutants, J. Bacteriol., 141: 223.
Marinus, M. G., and Morris, N. R., 1973, Isolation of deoxyribonucleic acid methylase mutants of Escherichia coli K12, J. Bacteriol., 114: 1143.
McGraw, B. R., and Marinus, M. G., 1980, Isolation and characterization of Dam+ revertants and suppressor mutations that modify secondary phenotypes of dam-3 strains of Escherichia coli K-12, Mol. Gen. Genet., 178:309.
Miller, H. I., and Friedman, D. I., 1980, An E. coli gene product required for lambda site-specific recombination, Cell, 20: 711.
Nevers, P., and Spatz, H-C., 1975, Escherichia coli mutants uvrD and uvrE deficient in gene conversion of A-heteroduplexes, Mol. Gen. Genet., 139: 233.
Ogawa, H., Shimada, K., and Tomizawa, J., 1968, Studies on radiation- sensitive mutants of E. coli. I. Mutants defective in the repair synthesis, Mol. Gen. Genet., 101:227.
Rosamund, J., Teleander, K. M., and Linn, S., 1979, Modulation of the action of the recBC enzyme of Escherichia coli K-12 by Ca++, J. Biol. Chem., 254: 8646.
Rydberg, B., 1977, Bromouracil mutagenesis in Escherichia coli: Evidence for involvement of mismatch repair, Mol. Gen. Genet. 152: 19.
Rydberg, B., 1978, Bromouracil mutagenesis and mismatch repair in mutator strains of Escherichia coli, Mutat. Res., 52:11.
Siegel, E. C., 1973, Ultraviolet-sensitive mutator strain of Escherichia coli K-12, J. Bacteriol., 113: 145.
Siegel, E. C., and Bryson, V., 1964, Selection of resistant strains of Escherichia coli by antibiotics and antibacterial agents: Role of normal and mutator strains, Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., 1963: 629.
Smirnow, G. B., and Skavronskaya, A. G., 1971, Location of uvr502 mutation on the chromosome of Escherichia coli K-12, Mol. Gen. Genet., 113: 217.
Stahl, F. W., and Stahl, M. M., 1977, Recombination pathway specificity of Chi, Genetics, 86: 715.
Stahl, F. W., and Stahl, M. M., 1977, Recombination pathway specificity of Chi, Genetics, 86: 715.
Taylor, A., and Smith, G. R., 1980, Unwinding and rewinding of DNA by the recBC enzyme, Cell, 22: 447.
Van de Putte, P., van Sluis, C. A., van Dillewijn, R., and Rorsch, A., 1965, The location of genes controlling radiation sensitivity in Escherichia coli, Mutat. Res., 2: 97.
Zissler, J., Signer, E., and Schaefer, F., 1971, The role of recombination in growth of bacteriophage lambda. I. The gamma gene, in: “The Bacteriophage Lambda,” A. D. Hershey, ed., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lundblad, V., Kleckner, N. (1982). Mutants of Escherichia coli K12 which Affect Excision of Transposon TN10. In: Lemontt, J.F., Generoso, W.M. (eds) Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3476-7_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3476-7_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-3478-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-3476-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive