Mu Insertions Are Repaired by the Double-Strand Break Repair Pathway of Escherichia coli

Date

2012-04-12

Authors

Jang, Sooin
Sandler, Steven J.
Harshey, Rasika M.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Abstract

Mu is both a transposable element and a temperate bacteriophage. During lytic growth, it amplifies its genome by replicative transposition. During infection, it integrates into the Escherichia coli chromosome through a mechanism not requiring extensive DNA replication. In the latter pathway, the transposition intermediate is repaired by transposase-mediated resecting of the 5′ flaps attached to the ends of the incoming Mu genome, followed by filling the remaining 5 bp gaps at each end of the Mu insertion. It is widely assumed that the gaps are repaired by a gap-filling host polymerase. Using the E. coli Keio Collection to screen for mutants defective in recovery of stable Mu insertions, we show in this study that the gaps are repaired by the machinery responsible for the repair of double-strand breaks in E. coli—the replication restart proteins PriA-DnaT and homologous recombination proteins RecABC. We discuss alternate models for recombinational repair of the Mu gaps.

Description

Sooin Jang is with UT Austin, Steven J. Sandler is with University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Rasika M. Harshey is with UT Austin.

LCSH Subject Headings

Citation

Jang S, Sandler SJ, Harshey RM (2012) Mu Insertions Are Repaired by the Double-Strand Break Repair Pathway of Escherichia coli. PLoS Genet 8(4): e1002642. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002642