Table I. Substrate selection.
| Partition ratios |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Plasmid/minicircle | Catenane/minicircle | Plasmid/catenane | |
| (A) Supercoiled DNA | |||
| EcoRV | 14.0 | 2.5 | 2.2 |
| ClaI | 11.5 | 2.9 | 2.2 |
| BsaAI | 13.0 | 3.0 | 2.4 |
| Eco47III | 15.9 | 3.2 | 2.0 |
| PstI | 10.9 | 3.4 | 2.0 |
| XhoI | 14.4 | 3.8 | 1.9 |
| (B) Relaxed DNA | |||
| EcoRV | 3.5 | 2.4 | 1.1 |
| ClaI | 3.4 | 2.7 | 1.1 |
The mixtures contained two DNA substrates (both 25 nM) and a restriction enzyme in reaction buffer at 37°C. The partitioning of the enzyme between the substrates was assessed as in Materials and methods: the ratios are given as means from ≥4 independent experiments. In (A), the plasmid and the catenane were in their native supercoiled states. In (B), the plasmid and the catenane had been relaxed with topoisomerase I.