In vitro studies on the bacteriophage P2 terminase system.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P Modrich.
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Si+ hybrid ColE1 plasmids of the Clarke-Carbon collection (Clarke, C., and Carbon, J. (1976) Cell 9, 91-99) which eliminate the sn-glycerol 3-phosphate growth requirement of a mutant of Escherichia coli with a Km defect in sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (plsB) were identified. Marked overproduction of a plasmid-encoded sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase with a wild type Km in a host plsB- background indicates that the hybrid plasmids carry a structural gene for this enzyme. In addition, all of these plasmids suppress the phenotype of a mutation in a second locus involved in phospholipid biosynthesis, dgk (diglyceride kinase), and one of them also bears the dnaB structural gene. Diglyceride kinase activity is also overproduced in these strains. The linkage of plsB, dgk and dnaB loci was confirmed by transduction analysis which demonstrated the clockwise gene order malB, dnaB, dgk, plsB, and uvrA near Minute 91 on the E. coli linkage map. This is in contrast to the previously reported co-transduction of plsB with dctA near Minute 78 (Cronan, J. E., Jr., and Bell, R. M. (1974) J. Bacteriol., 120, 227-233). Recloning of restriction endonuclease fragments and in vitro mutagenesis have localized the dgk, and plsB loci to a 2.2-megadalton DNA segment, and have demonstrated that diglyceride kinase and sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase activities reside in separate polypeptides. Availability of these clones and mutationally altered derivatives has allowed the identification of a single polypeptide (Mr = 83,000) corresponding to the sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase and purification of this membrane-bound enzyme to near homogeneity (Larson, T. J., Lightner, V. A., Green, P. R., Modrich, P., and Bell, R. M. (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 9421-9426). The size of the plsB polypeptide indicates that a major fraction of the DNA segment to which this gene has been localized is involved in coding for the sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase.
A collection of hybrid plasmids bearing a structural gene, plsB, for the sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase of Escherichia cole (Lightner, V. A., Larson, T. J., Tailleur, P., Kantor, G. D., Raetz, C. R. H., Bell, R. M., and Modrich, P. (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 9413-9420) was employed to identify the membrane protein which is the sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase. Strains containing these hybrid plasmids exhibited a marked increase in sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase activity which was quantitatively extracted from membrane preparations with Triton X-100. Analysis of polypeptides present in detergent extracts of membranes from strains harboring the hybrid plasmids revealed a marked overproduction of a protein with an apparent molecular weight of 83,000, which was also the major protein labeled in minicells containing these hybrid plasmids. The labeled 83,000-dalton protein cochromatographed with sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase activity on DEAE-cellulose. Utilization of three hybrid plasmids bearing amber mutations within the plsB gene demonstrated that the 83,000-dalton protein is the sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase. Analysis of Bam HI deletion plasmids demonstrated that a 2.3-megadalton DNA fragment is necessary and sufficient for expression of the plsB gene. The sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase was purified to near homogeneity from Triton X-100 extracts of membranes from overproducing strains. The preparations had reconstitutable specific activity of 2.5 micromol/min/mg and contained a single polypeptide with an apparent molecular weight of 83,000.
The structural gene for the Escherichia coli biosynthetic sn-glycerol-3-phosphate (glycerol-P) dehydrogenase gpsA, was transferred from a defective transducing phage (lambda dcysE, gpsA) into the Eco RI site of plasmid pMB9 by recombinant DNA techniques. The recombinant plasmids suppressed the glycerol-P requirement of gpsA- mutants and strains bearing one such plasmid, pDC2, overproduced the glycerol-P dehydrogenase about 60-fold. The glycerol-P dehydrogenase from a strain bearing the pDC2 was purified 200-fold to homogeneity. This is contrasted to the 12,000-fold purification required to purify the enzyme from a wild type strain (Edgar, J. R., and Bell, R. M. (1978) J. Biol. Chem. 253, 6348-6353). The homogeneous enzyme purified from a strain bearing the pDC2 plasmide was strongly inhibited by glycerol-P (Ki of 2.5 microM). The introduction of the pDC2 plasmid into glycerol-P auxotrophs containing a Km-defective glycerol-P acyltranferase, defined by the plsB locus, caused a 60-fold overproduction of the glycerol-P requirement. This strongly suggests that the intracellular level of glycerol-P is stringently regulated in vivo by a mechanism involving feedback inhibition of the glycerol-P dehydrogenase by glycerol-P.
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Bacteriophage T7-induced DNA polymerase has been isolated by a procedure suitable for large scale use and which yields near homogeneous enzyme. In addition to previously described DNA polymerase activity and 3' to 5' exonucleolytic activity on single stranded DNA (Grippo, P., and Richardson, C. C. (1971) J. Biol. Chem. 246, 6867-6873), the enzyme also possesses a highly active exonuclease which hydrolyzes duplex substrates with 3' to 5' directionality. The native polymerase has been dissociated using 6 M guanidine HCl and resolved into biologically active subunits: T7 gene 5 protein and Escherichia coli thioredoxin. The phage-specified subunit obtained by this procedure is deficient in DNA polymerase and double strand exonuclease activities, with deficiencies in these activities being apparent at the level of a single turnover. However, it possesses near normal levels of a single strand hydrolytic activity which is identical to that associated with the native polymerase with respect to substrate specificity and suppression of hydrolysis by low levels of deoxyribonucleoside 5'-triphosphates. Thioredoxin forms a molecular complex with the T7 gene 5 protein, and addition of the host protein restores restores DNA polymerase and double strand exonuclease activities to near normal levels.
The recognition sequence for the dam methylase of Escherichia coli K12 has been determined directly by use of in vivo methylated ColE1 DNA or DNA methylated in vitro with purified enzyme. The methylase recognizes the symmetric tetranucleotide d(pG-A-T-C) and introduces two methyl groups per site in duplex DNA with the product of methylation being 6-methylaminopurine. This work has also demonstrated that Dpn I restriction endonuclease cleaves on the 3' side of the modified adenine within the methylated sequence to yield DNA fragments possessing fully base-paired termini. All sequences in ColE1 DNA methylated by the dam enzyme are subject to double strand cleavage by Dpn I endonuclease. Therefore, this restriction enzyme can be employed for mapping the location of sequences possessing the dam modification.
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The mechanism of EcoRI endonuclease is substrate dependent. At 37 degrees dissociation of the enzyme-Form II DNA intermediates of ColE1 DNA and bacteriophage G4 RFI DNA is negligible. Therefore, both DNA strands with in the EcoRI sequence are cleaved during a single binding event. However, double strand cleavage of SV40 DNA occurs without dissociation of the enzyme in only 75% of the catalytic events. This mechanistic difference presumably reflects sequence differences about the EcoRI sites of these DNA's.
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The dG residues within the EcoRI recognition sequence of ColE1 DNA have been selectively replaced with dI. Methylation of the altered sequence by the EcoRI modification enzyme is extremely slow as compared with methyl transfer to the natural recognition site. Since the affinity of the modification enzyme for the dI-containing sequence is considerably less than that for the natural sequence, we have concluded that the 2-amino group of dG has an important role in DNA site recognition by this enzyme. In contrast, the altered site is subject to cleavage by EcoRI endonuclease at rates essentially identical with those observed with the natural sequence. These results strongly suggest that the two enzymes utilize different contacts within the EcoRI site and are consisted with our conclusion (Rubin, R. A., and Modrich, P. (1977) J. Biol. Chem. 252, 7265-7272) that the two proteins interact with their common recognition sequence in different ways.
A procedure for large scale isolation of Escherichia coli RI endonuclease in high yield has been developed. The purified enzyme is homogeneous as judged by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and analytical sedimentation. The denatured and reduced form of the enzyme has a molecular weight of 28,500 +/- 500. In solution the enzyme exists as a mixture of dimers and tetramers of molecular weights 57,000 and 114,000, respectively. We estimate the dissociation constant for tetramer to dimer transition to be less than or approximately equal to 1 x 10-7 M. Steady state kinetic analysis of the endonuclease with ColE1 DNA as substrate showed that the enzyme obeys Michaelis-Menten kinetics. At 37 degrees the turnover number is four double strand scissons per min, and the Km for ColE1 molecules is 8 x 10(-9) M. At 0 degrees the major product of endonuclease action contains only one single strand break in the RI site, and such molecules can dissociate from the enzyme. In contrast, at 30 degrees to 37 degrees, two single strand breaks are introduced into the RI sequence prior to dissociation of the enzyme. A transient enzyme-bound intermediate containing only one break in the RI site was observed in studies of a single turnover at 30 degrees. Kinetic analysis of this reaction indicates that the first break is introduced into the RI site with the first order rate constant of at least 40 min-1, while the second cleavage occurs with a rate constant of 14 min-1. Since the turnover number of the enzyme at 30 degress is only 0.72 min-1, these results indicate that the rate-limiting step is release of endonuclear from its DNA product.
Limited treatment of Escherichia coli DNA ligase with trypsin results in rapid loss of DNA joining activity. However, the ability to react with DPN to form the covalent enzyme-AMP intermediate is unaffected. The cleaved enzyme is also unable to catalyze the formation of DNA-adenylate, the second covalent intermediate in the ligase-catalyzed reaction. These findings demonstrate that portions of the DNA ligase molecule that are required for phosphodiester bond formation are not required for at least one of the partial reactions catalyzed by this enzyme.
In vivo, replication of T7 DNA does not occur after infection of Escherchia coli tsnC mutants (CHAMBERLIN, M. (1974) J. Virol. 14, 509-516). In vitro, extracts of tsnC mutant E. coli infected with T7 hage are incapable of replicating duplex T7 DNA, although extracts of wild type E. coli infected with T7 phage support replication of T7 DNA. In addition, extracts of the infected tsnC mutant are deficient in T7 DNA polymerase activity. Extracts prepared from uninfected E.coli tsnC-+ cells restore the ability of the infected tsnC extracts to replicate duplex T7 DNA, and also restore normal levels of the phage DNA polymerase activity. A 12,000-dalton heat-stable protein responsible for this complementation has been purified to near homogeneity from uninfected tsnC+ extracts and it is designated "TsnC protein."
The DNA polymerase induced after infection of Escherichia coli by phage T7 has been purified 500-fold to near homogeneity as judged by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. The purified enzyme complements extracts of cells infected with a T7 gene 5 mutant to permit cell-free replication of duplex T7 DNA. In contrast, purified T4 DNA polymerase or E. coli DNA polymerase I is unable to do so, thus suggesting a specific requirement for the T7 enzyme in the replication of the viral DNA. E. coli TsnC protein is present in purified T7 DNA polymerase in one-to-one stoichiometry with T7 gene 5 protein, and can be isolated in homogeneous form from heat-denatured enzyme by chromatography on DEAE-cellulose. The inactive form of T7 gene 5 protein that accumulates in tsnC hosts has been partially purified. When partially purified gene 5 protein is mixed with purified TsnC protein, DNA polymerase activity is restored, and formation of a one-to-one complex between the two proteins occurs. These results indicate that the functional form ofT7 DNA polymerase is a complex composed of phage- and host-specified subunits.
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