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. 1980 May;77(5):2819–2823. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.5.2819

DNA-damaging agents stimulate gene expression at specific loci in Escherichia coli.

C J Kenyon, G C Walker
PMCID: PMC349496  PMID: 6771759

Abstract

Operon fusions in Escherichia coli were obtained that showed increased beta-galactosidase expression in response to treatment with the DNA-damaging agent mitomycin C. These fusions were generated by using the Mud(ApR, lac) vector [Casadaban, M.J. & Cohen, S.N. (1979) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 76, 4530-4533] to insert the lactose structural genes randomly into the bacterial chromosome. Induction of beta-galactosidase in these strains, which carried fusions of lac to these din (damage-inducible) loci, was (i) triggered by UV light as well as by mitomycin C and (ii) abolished by either a recA- or a lexA- mutation. Similar characteristics of induction were observed when the lactose genes were fused to a prophage lambda promoter by using Mud(ApR, lac). These results indicate that E. coli contains a set of genes that, like prophage lambda genes, are expressed in response to DNA-damaging agents and regulated by the recA and lexA gene products. These din genes map at five bacterial loci. One din::Mud(ApR, lac) insertion results in a UV-sensitive phenotype and may be within the uvrA transcriptional unit.

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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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