In vitro recombination assay. 34 bp Lox duplex (“Lox”) is recombined with Lox-containing 220 bp duplex DNA, upon addition of CreWT or CreQQ. The Lox-containing DNA is labeled on the 5′ ends with 32P (*). Recombination yields two labeled duplex products, of 141 bp and 113 bp. The reaction mixture is separated by SDS-PAGE, and the unreacted substrate (“S-220”), products (“P-141” and “P-113”), and the slower migrating HJ intermediate (“HJ”) are visualized and quantitated using autoradiography and phosphorimaging. Impurities (“i”, <2% of total counts) were not included in the quantitation. The two gels are representative of the raw data for assembly titration reactions of CreWT/LoxGC (left panel) and CreQQ/LoxGC (right panel), with the complex concentration (in nM) listed above each lane.