Molecular and General Genetics MGG

, Volume 179, Issue 3, pp 521–526 | Cite as

Coordinate expression of Escherichia coli dnaA and dnaN genes

  • Tomoyuki Sako
  • Yoshimasa Sakakibara
Article
Received:

Summary

The defects of temperature-sensitive dnaA and dnaN mutants of Escherichia coli are complemented by a recombinant lambda phage, which carries the bacterial DNA segment composed of two EcoRI segments of 1.0 and 3.3 kilobases. Derivatives of the phage, which have an insertion segment of Tn3 in the dnaA gene, are much less active in expressing the dnaN gene function than the parent phage. The dnaN gene activity was determined as the efficiency of superinfecting phage to suppress loss of the viability of λ lysogenic dnaN59 cells at the nonpermissive temperature. Deletions that include the end of the dnaA gene distal to the dnaN gene also reduce the expression of the dnaN gene fuction. Deletion and insertion in the dnaN gene do not affect the expression of the dnaA gene function. The expression of the dnaN gene function by the dnaA-dnaN+ phages remains weak upon simultaneous infection with dnaA+dnaN- phages. Thus the insertion and deletion in the dnaA gene influence in cis the expression of the dnaN gene. We propose that the dnaA and dnaN genes constitute an operon, where the former is upstream to the latter.

Keywords

Escherichia Coli Gene Function Gene Activity dnaA Gene Lambda Phage 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 1980

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tomoyuki Sako
    • 1
  • Yoshimasa Sakakibara
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of ChemistryNational Institute of HealthShingagawa, TokyoJapan

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