Summary
A mutant strain of E. coli which was isolated initially because of its strong hyper-recombination phenotype was shown to carry a lesion in uvrD. The presence of this mutation, designated uvrD210, increased the frequency of recombination between chromosomal duplications in F-prime repliconant cells and reduced linkage between closely linked markers in crosses with Hfr donors. A comparable hyper-rec phenotype was demonstrated in strains carrying other alleles of uvrD previously referred to as mutU4, uvr502 and recL152. The recombination activity of a uvrD210 strain was abolished by mutation of recA but the mutator activity associated with this allele proved to be independent of recA. It is suggested that uvrD mutations reduce the fidelity of DNA replication and that the accumulation of lesions in the newly synthesized strand provides additional sites for initiating recombination.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bachmann BJ (1972) Pedigrees of some mutant strains of Escherichia coli K-12. Bacteriol Rev 36:525–557
Bachmann BJ, Low KB (1980) Linkage map of Escherichia coli K-12, edition 6. Microbiol Rev 44:1–56
Birge EA, Low KB (1974) Detection of transcribable recombination products following conjugation in Rec+, RecB−, and RecC+ strains of Escherichia coli K-12. J Mol Biol 83:447–457
Garen A (1968) Sense and nonsense in the genetic code. Science 160:149–159
Glickman BW, Radman M (1980) Escherichia coli mutator mutants deficient in methylation-instructed DNA mismatch correction. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 77:1063–1067
Horii ZI, Clark AJ (1973) Genetic analysis of the recF pathway to genetic recombination in Escherichia coli K-12: isolation and characterisation of mutants. J Mol Biol 80:327–344
Konrad EB (1977) Method for the isolation of Escherichia coli mutants with enhanced recombination between chromosomal duplications. J Bacteriol 130:167–172
Lloyd RG (1978) Hyper-recombination in Escherichia coli K-12 mutants constitutive for protein X synthesis. J Bact 134:929–935
Lloyd RG, Barbour SD (1974) The genetic location of the sbcA gene of Escherichia coli. Mol Gen Genet 134:157–171
Lloyd RG, Low B (1976) Some genetic consequences of changes in the level of recA gene function in Escherichia coli K-12. Genetics 84:675–695
Lloyd RG, Low B, Godson GN, Birge EA (1974) Isolation and characterisation of an Escherichia coli K-12 mutant with a temperature-sensitive RecA− phenotype. J Bacteriol 120:407–415
Lloyd RG, Scott HM (1978) A non-selective assay of recombination in Escherichia coli K-12. Society for General Microbiology Quarterly 6:42
Low B (1973) Rapid mapping of conditional and auxotrophic mutations in Escherichia coli K-12. J Bacteriol 113:798–812
Marinus MG, Konrad EB (1976) Hyper-recombination in dam mutants of Escherichia coli K-12. Mol Gen Genet 149:273–277
Miller, JG (1972) Experiments in molecular genetics. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York
Nevers P, Spatz HC (1975) Escherichia coli mutants uvrD and uvrE deficient in gene conversion of λ-heteroduplexes. Mol Gen Genet 139:233–243
Ogawa H, Shimada K, Tomizawa J (1968) Studies on radiationsensitive mutants of E. coli. I. Mutants defective in the repair synthesis. Mol Gen Genet 101:227–244
Radding CM (1978) Genetic recombination: Strand transfer and mismatch repair. Ann Rev Biochem 47:847–880
Radman M, Villani G, Boiteux S, Kinsella AR, Glickman BW, Spadari S (1978) Replication fidelity: Mechanisms of mutation avoidance and mutation fixation. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York
Rothman RH, Clark AJ (1977) Defective excision and postreplication repair of UV-damaged DNA in a recL mutant strain of E. coli K-12. Mol Gen Genet 155:267–277
Scott HM, Lloyd RG (1979) Hyper-recombination in uvrE mutants of Escherichia coli K-12. Society for General Microbiology Quarterly 7:27
Siegel, EC (1973a) Ultraviolet-sensitive mutator strain of Escherichia coli K-12. J Bacteriol 113:145–160
Siegel EC (1973b) Ultraviolet-sensitive mutator mutU4 of Escherichia coli inviable with polA. J Bacteriol 113:161–166
Smirnov GB, Filkova EV, Skavronskaya AG (1973a) Ultraviolet sensitivity, spontaneous mutability and DNA degradation in Escherichia coli strains carrying mutations in uvr and rec genes. J Gen Microbiol 76, 407–416
Smirnov GB, Filkova EV, Skavronskaya AG (1973b) Loss and restoration of viability of E. coli due to combinations of mutations affecting DNA polymerase I and repair activities. Mol Gen Genet 121:139–150
Van de Putte P, van Sluis CA, van Dillewijn J, Rorsch A (1965) The location of genes controlling radiation sensitivity in Escherichia coli. Mutat Res 2:97–110
Van Sluis CA, Mattern IA, Paterson MC (1974) Properties of uvrE mutants of Escherichia coli K-12 I. effects of UV irradiation on DNA metabolism. Mutat Res 25:273–279
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by B.A. Bridges
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Arthur, H.M., Lloyd, R.G. Hyper-recombination in uvrD mutants of Escherichia coli K-12. Molec. Gen. Genet. 180, 185–191 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267368
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00267368