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. 1977 May;130(2):724–728. doi: 10.1128/jb.130.2.724-728.1977

Cell division in Escherichia coli BS-12 is hypersensitive to deoxyribonucleic acid damage by ultraviolet light.

B A Bridges, R P Mottershead, M H Green
PMCID: PMC235273  PMID: 400790

Abstract

Escherichia coli BS-12 uvrA lon is hypersensitive to ultraviolet light. On minimal agar plates at densities in excess of about 10(7) bacteria per plate, as few as one or two photoreversible pyrimidine dimers in the entire genome are sufficient to cause inhibition of cell division. Most of the resulting filaments are unable to divide or form a viable colony. Inhibition of cell division appears to be a rapid consequence of replication of deoxyribonucleic acid containing a pyrimidine dimer. Photoreversibility of the inhibition of cell division persists indefinitely, indicating that the continued presence of the pyrimidine dimers (or the continued generation of daughter strand gaps) is necessary to maintain the division-inhibited state. In view of the kinetics for the production of filamentation by ultraviolet light and the extremely low average inducing fluence (0.03 J/m2), it is concluded that the initiating signal is not the same as that causing other inducible phenomena such as prophage induction or Weigle reactivation.

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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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