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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1979 Mar;76(3):1363–1367. doi: 10.1073/pnas.76.3.1363

Strand exchange in site-specific recombination.

L W Enquist, H Nash, R A Weisberg
PMCID: PMC383251  PMID: 375237

Abstract

The site-specific recombination system of phage lambda promotes crossovers at its attachment site (att). In this report we show that when phage are crossed in conditions where only the site-specific recombination system is active, a low frequency of crossovers can also be detected in a region that is close to but does not contain att. These crossovers require the phage int gene, the host hip gene, and the integrity of att. They are not detected if one of the parents carries a substitution of a heterologous attachment site (attB instead of attP). To explain these findings we suggest that site-specific recombination can proceed by exchange of single strands between the participating chromosomes at att and migration of the resulting junction outside of att.

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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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