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. 1985 Jul;82(14):4678–4682. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.14.4678

Specialized nucleoprotein structures at the origin of replication of bacteriophage lambda: complexes with lambda O protein and with lambda O, lambda P, and Escherichia coli DnaB proteins.

M Dodson, J Roberts, R McMacken, H Echols
PMCID: PMC390449  PMID: 2991888

Abstract

The O protein of bacteriophage lambda is required for initiation of DNA replication at the lambda replicative origin designated ori lambda. The binding sites for O protein are four direct repeats, each of which is an inverted repeat. By means of electron microscopy, we have found that phage lambda O protein utilizes these multiple binding sites to form a specific nucleoprotein structure in which the origin DNA is inferred to be folded or wound. The phage lambda O and P proteins and host DnaB protein interact at ori lambda to generate a larger structure than that formed by O protein alone; P and DnaB proteins fail to form any observable complex when O protein is excluded from the reaction mixture. We conclude that the specialized nucleoprotein structure formed by phage lambda O protein and ori lambda provides for localized initiation of DNA replication by serving as the foundation for the assembly of the initial priming structure. Specialized nucleoprotein structures may be a general means to confer exceptional accuracy on DNA transactions requiring extraordinary precision.

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These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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