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. 1994 Mar;176(6):1667–1672. doi: 10.1128/jb.176.6.1667-1672.1994

DNA helicase requirements for DNA replication during bacteriophage T4 infection.

P Gauss 1, K Park 1, T E Spencer 1, K J Hacker 1
PMCID: PMC205253  PMID: 8132462

Abstract

The lytic bacteriophage T4 uses multiple mechanisms to initiate the replication of its DNA. Initiation occurs predominantly at replication origins at early times of infection, but there is a switch to genetic recombination-dependent initiation at late times of infection. The T4 insertion-substitution system was used to create a deletion in the T4 dda gene, which encodes a 5'-3' DNA helicase that stimulates both DNA replication and recombination reactions in vitro. The deletion caused a delay in T4 DNA synthesis at early times of infection, suggesting that the Dda protein is involved in the initiation of origin-dependent DNA synthesis. However, DNA synthesis eventually reached nearly wild-type levels, and the final number of phages produced per bacterium was similar to that of the wild type. When the dda mutant phage also contained a mutation in T4 gene 59 (a gene normally required only for recombination-dependent DNA replication), essentially no DNA was synthesized. Recent in vitro studies have shown that the gene 59 protein loads a component of the primosome, the T4 gene 41 DNA helicase, onto DNA. A molecular model for replication initiation is presented that is based on our genetic data.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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