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. 1990 Nov;126(3):519–533. doi: 10.1093/genetics/126.3.519

Further Tests of a Recombination Model in Which χ Removes the Recd Subunit from the Recbcd Enzyme of Escherichia Coli

F W Stahl 1, L C Thomason 1, I Siddiqi 1, M M Stahl 1
PMCID: PMC1204209  PMID: 2249753

Abstract

When one of two infecting λ phage types in a replication-blocked cross is χ(+) and DNA packaging is divorced from the RecBCD-χ interaction, complementary χ-stimulated recombinants are recovered equally in mass lysates only if the χ(+) parent is in excess in the infecting parental mixture. Otherwise, the χ(0) recombinant is recovered in excess. This observation implies that, along with the χ(0) chromosome, two χ(+) parent chromosomes are involved in the formation of each χ(+) recombinant. The trimolecular nature of χ(+)-stimulated recombination is manifest in recombination between λ and a plasmid. When λ recombines with a plasmid via the RecBCD pathway, the resulting chromosome has an enhanced probability of undergoing λ X λ recombination in the interval into which the plasmid was incorporated. These two observations support a model in which DNA is degraded by Exo V from cos, the sequence that determines the end of packaged λ DNA and acts as point of entry for RecBCD enzyme, to χ, the DNA sequence that stimulates the RecBCD enzyme to effect recombination. The model supposes that χ acts by ejecting the RecD subunit from the RecBCD enzyme with two consequences. (1) ExoV activity is blocked leaving a highly recombinagenic, frayed duplex end near χ, and (2) as the enzyme stripped of the RecD subunit travels beyond χ it is competent to catalyze reciprocal recombination.

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Selected References

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