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. 1993 Jul 11;21(14):3205–3209. doi: 10.1093/nar/21.14.3205

Antipairing and strand transferase activities of E. coli helicase II (UvrD).

P Morel 1, J A Hejna 1, S D Ehrlich 1, E Cassuto 1
PMCID: PMC309756  PMID: 8341594

Abstract

The product of the uvrD gene of Escherichia coli, UvrD (helicase II), is known to be involved in methyl-directed mismatch repair, transposon excision and uvrABC excision repair. In conjugational crosses, various uvrD mutants have been reported to result in higher, lower or unaffected recombination frequencies. In an attempt to clarify the role of UvrD in recombination, we have studied in vitro its effects on two key reactions driven by RecA, homologous pairing and strand exchange. We show here that UvrD efficiently prevents or reverses RecA-mediated homologous pairing. Unexpectedly, we also found that it can stimulate RecA-driven branch migration and even catalyze strand exchange in the absence of RecA. A possible in vivo role for these antagonistic activities is discussed.

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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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