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. 1986 Nov 25;14(22):8919–8932. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.22.8919

Mechanism of intramolecular recyclization and deletion formation following transformation of Escherichia coli with linearized plasmid DNA.

E C Conley, V A Saunders, V Jackson, J R Saunders
PMCID: PMC311920  PMID: 3537964

Abstract

The deletion end-points of a number of type I (less than monomeric) plasmid deletants obtained by transforming recA+ or recA- E. coli with linear pBR322 DNA were determined by DNA sequencing. In both monodirectional and bidirectional deletions the recyclization point was normally characterized by recombination between directly repeated sequences of between 4 and 10 bp present on each arm of the linearized pBR322 molecule. Frequently, short tracts of uninterrupted homology involved in recombinational recircularization were embedded in regions of relative non-homology. A model predicting the probability of matching sequences in either end of a linear plasmid molecule is presented. It is proposed that exonucleolytic processing of the exposed termini of linear plasmid molecules generates substrates for subsequent recombinational recyclization and deletion. The activity of host recombination and repair functions in recircularizing linear DNA molecules explains the generation of many of the aberrant recombinant DNA constructs obtained during gene cloning procedures.

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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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