Summary
Fragments of DNA molecules of Salmonella phage 22 which represent the molecular termini created by the terminase reaction have been cloned and sequenced. The terminase cleavage separates a headful-sized piece of DNA from the concatemeric precursor; by successful cloning strategy it was shown that the terminase produces blunt ends. The termini of 20 different phage DNA molecules fall into a region located between about 600 and 4000 bp from the pac signal and show a Gaussian distribution. The average terminal redundancy was calculated to be about 2230 by (=5.3%) and is therefore higher than was previously reported. A comparison of the nucleotides flanking the terminal bases of 20 different end clones does not support the suggestion that the terminase recognizes some specific sequence and/or structural information in determining the actual cleavage site.
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Communicated by W. Goebel
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Schmieger, H., Taleghani, K.M., Meierl, A. et al. A molecular analysis of terminase cuts in headful packaging of Salmonella phage P22. Molec. Gen. Genet. 221, 199–202 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00261721
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00261721