Probing the substrate specificity of the bacterial Pnkp/Hen1 RNA repair system using synthetic RNAs

Ribotoxins cleave essential RNAs involved in protein synthesis as a strategy for cell killing. RNA repair systems exist in nature to counteract the lethal actions of ribotoxins, as first demonstrated by the RNA repair system from bacteriophage T4 25 yr ago. Recently, we found that two bacterial proteins, named Pnkp and Hen1, form a stable complex and are able to repair ribotoxin-cleaved tRNAs in vitro. However, unlike the well-studied T4 RNA repair system, the natural RNA substrates of the bacterial Pnkp/Hen1 RNA repair system are unknown. Here we present comprehensive RNA repair assays with the recombinant Pnkp/Hen1 proteins from Anabaena variabilis using a total of 33 different RNAs as substrates that might mimic various damaged forms of RNAs present in living cells. We found that unlike the RNA repair system from bacteriophage T4, the bacterial Pnkp/Hen1 RNA repair system exhibits broad substrate specificity. Based on the experimental data presented here, a model of preferred RNA substrates of the Pnkp/Hen1 repair system is proposed.     

Activities involved in base excision repair of bacteriophage T4 and lambda DNA in vivo

Summary The in vivo excision repair functions of Escherichia coli exonuclease III and 3-methyladenine DNA glycosylase I, and bacteriophage T4 pyrimidine dimer-DNA glycosylase were investigated. Following exposure of bacteriophage T4 or lambda to methyl methanesulfonate or ultraviolet irradiation, survival was determined by plating on E. coli have various genetic backgrounds. Although exonuclease III was shown to participate in base excision repair initiated by 3-methyladenine DNA glcosylase I, it had no detectable role in base excision repair initiated by the T4 pyrimidine dimer-DNA glycosylase. Despite its 3 apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease activity in vitro, T4 pyrimidine dimer-DNA glycosylase, even in large quantities, did not complement mutants defective in exonuclease III in the repair of apurinic sites generated by 3-methyladenine DNA glycosylase I in vivo.     

Photodynamic inactivation and mutagenesis by angelicin (isopsoralen) or thiopyronin (methylene red) in wild-type and repair-deficient strains of bacteriophage T4.

Photodynamic inactivation of bacteriophage T4 particles, mediated by either angelicin or thiopyronin, is enhanced by defects in the T4 uvsW-uvsX-uvsY postreplication repair system but not by a defect in the denV pyrimidine-dimer-excision system. There was no evidence for functional interactions between the two repair systems. As observed previously with 8-methoxypsoralen, photodynamic mutagenesis with angelicin is abolished by defects in the uvsW-uvsX-uvsY system.     

Repair of Alkylated Bacteriophage T4 Deoxyribonucleic Acid by a Mechanism Involving Polynucleotide Ligase

Methyl methanesulfate-induced lesions in bacteriophage T4 are repaired primarily by a mechanism involving polynucleotide ligase. Apparently, other recombinational and ultraviolet repair functions aren't involved.     

Two early genes of bacteriophage T5 encode proteins containing an NTP-binding sequence motif and probably involved in DNA replication, recombination and repair

It is demonstrated, by computer-assisted analysis, that T5 bacteriophage early genes D10 and D13 encode proteins containing the purine NTP-binding sequence motif. The D10 gene product is shown to be a member of a recently characterized superfamily of (putative) DNA and RNA helicases. The D13 gene product is related at a statistically significant level, to the gene 46 product of bacteriophage T4 which is a component of an exonuclease involved in phage DNA replication, recombination and repair. A lower but also significant degree of sequence similarity was detected between the gene D12 product of T5 and the gene 47 product of T4, the second component of the same nuclease. It is hypothesized that both D10 and D13 gene products of T5 might be NTPases, possibly DNA-dependent, mediating NTP-consuming steps during phage DNA replication, recombination and/or repair.     

Fork regression is an active helicase‐driven pathway in bacteriophage T4

Reactivation of stalled replication forks requires specialized mechanisms that can recognize the fork structure and promote downstream processing events. Fork regression has been implicated in several models of fork reactivation as a crucial processing step that supports repair. However, it has also been suggested that regressed forks represent pathological structures rather than physiological intermediates of repair. To investigate the biological role of fork regression in bacteriophage T4, we tested several mechanistic models of regression: strand exchange‐mediated extrusion, topology‐driven fork reversal and helicase‐mediated extrusion. Here, we report that UvsW, a T4 branch‐specific helicase, is necessary for the accumulation of regressed forks in vivo, and that UvsW‐catalysed regression is the dominant mechanism of origin‐fork processing that contributes to double‐strand end formation. We also show that UvsW resolves purified fork intermediates in vitro by fork regression. Regression is therefore part of an active, UvsW‐driven pathway of fork processing in bacteriophage T4.     

Deoxyribonucleic Acid Repair in Bacteriophage T4: Observations on the Roles of the x and v Genes and of Host Factors

Studies were carried out to determine the effect of mutation in the host pol I gene on survival of ultraviolet (UV)-irradiated bacteriophage T4. Whereas a slightly reduced survival was observed in Escherichia coli strain P-3478 (pol A(1)) compared to strain W-3110 (pol A(+)), no such difference was observed in two strains isogenic except for the pol A gene. It was also shown that, whereas bacteriophage T4x is sensitive to UV irradiation, X irradiation, and treatment with methyl-methanesulfonate (MMS), phage T4v(1) is sensitive only to UV irradiation. The survival of damaged phage T4x is neither affected by the presence of the rec A, rec B, or pol A mutations in the host, nor is there evidence that phage T4 effects repair of rec A or pol A mutants previously treated with either UV or MMS.     

Complementation of bacteriophage induction and recombination defects in Escherichia coli RecA(-) mutants by expression of the cloned T4 bacteriophage uvsX gene

Previous workers reported that the T4 bacteriophage UvsX protein could promote neither RecA-LexA-mediated DNA repair nor induction of lysogenized bacteriophage, only recombination. Reexamination of these phenotypes demonstrated that, in contrast to these prior studies, when this gene was cloned into a medium but not a low-copy-number vector, it stimulated both a high frequency of spontaneous induction and mitomycin C-stimulated bacteriophage induction in a strain containing a recA13 mutation, but not a recA1 defect. The gene when cloned into a low- or medium- copy-number vector also promoted a low frequency of recombination of two duplicated genes in Escherichia coli in a strain with a complete recA gene deletion. These results suggest that a narrow concentration range of T4 UvsX protein is required to promote both high-frequency spontaneous and mitomycin C-stimulated bacteriophage induction in a recA13 gene mutant, but it facilitates recombination of duplicated genes at only a very low frequency in E. coli RecA(-) mutants with a complete recA deletion. These results also suggest that the different UvsX phenotypes are affected differentially by the concentration of UvsX protein present.     

Development of T7 phage and T7 phage containing apurinic sites in an exonuclease III, endonuclease IV double mutant of Escherichia coli.

The development of bacteriophage T7 was examined in an Escherichia coli double mutant defective for the two major apurinic, apyrimidinic endonucleases (exonuclease III and endonuclease IV, xth nfo). In cells infected with phages containing apurinic sites, the defect in repair enzymes led to a decrease of phage survival and a total absence of bacterial DNA degradation and of phage DNA synthesis. These results directly demonstrate the toxic action of apurinic sites on bacteriophage T7 at the intracellular level and its alleviation by DNA repair. In addition, untreated T7 phage unexpectedly displayed reduced plating efficiency and decreased DNA synthesis in the xth nfo double mutant.     

Role of exonuclease III and endonuclease IV in repair of pyrimidine dimers initiated by bacteriophage T4 pyrimidine dimer-DNA glycosylase.

The role of exonuclease III and endonuclease IV in the repair of pyrimidine dimers in bacteriophage T4-infected Escherichia coli was examined. UV-irradiated T4 showed reduced survival when plated on an xth nfo double mutant but showed wild-type survival on either single mutant. T4 denV phage were equally sensitive when plated on wild-type E. coli or an xth nfo double mutant, suggesting that these endonucleases function in the same repair pathway as T4 pyrimidine dimer-DNA glycosylase. A uvrA mutant of E. coli in which the repair of pyrimidine dimers was dependent on the T4 denV gene carried on a plasmid was constructed. Neither an xth nor an nfo derivative of this strain was more sensitive than the parental strain to UV irradiation. We were unable to construct a uvrA xth nfo triple mutant. In addition, T4, which turns off the host UvrABC excision nuclease, showed reduced plating efficiency on an xth nfo double mutant.     

On the mutagenicity of homologous recombination and double-strand break repair in bacteriophage

The double-strand break (DSB) repair via homologous recombination is generally construed as a high-fidelity process. However, some molecular genetic observations show that the recombination and the recombinational DSB repair may be mutagenic and even highly mutagenic. Here we developed an effective and precise method for studying the fidelity of DSB repair in vivo by combining DSBs produced site-specifically by the SegC endonuclease with the famous advantages of the recombination analysis of bacteriophage T4 rII mutants. The method is based on the comparison of the rate of reversion of rII mutation in the presence and in the absence of a DSB repair event initiated in the proximity of the mutation. We observed that DSB repair may moderately (up to 6-fold) increase the apparent reversion frequency, the effect of being dependent on the mutation structure. We also studied the effect of the T4 recombinase deficiency (amber mutation in the uvsX gene) on the fidelity of DSB repair. We observed that DSBs are still repaired via homologous recombination in the uvsX mutants, and the apparent fidelity of this repair is higher than that seen in the wild-type background. The mutator effect of the DSB repair may look unexpected given that most of the normal DNA synthesis in bacteriophage T4 is performed via a recombination-dependent replication (RDR) pathway, which is thought to be indistinguishable from DSB repair. There are three possible explanations for the observed mutagenicity of DSB repair: (1) the origin-dependent (early) DNA replication may be more accurate than the RDR; (2) the step of replication initiation may be more mutagenic than the process of elongation; and (3) the apparent mutagenicity may just reflect some non-randomness in the pool of replicating DNA, i.e., preferential replication of the sequences already involved in replication. We discuss the DSB repair pathway in the absence of UvsX recombinase.     

Repair of Double-Strand Breaks in Bacteriophage T4 by a Mechanism That Involves Extensive DNA Replication

We investigated double-strand break (dsb) repair in bacteriophage T4 using a physical assay that involves a plasmid substrate with two inverted DNA segments. A dsb introduced into one repeat during a T4 infection induces efficient dsb repair using the second repeat as a template. This reaction is characterized by the following interesting features. First, the dsb induces a repair reaction that is directly coupled to extensive plasmid replication; the repaired/replicated product is in the form of long plasmid concatemers. Second, repair of the dsb site is frequently associated with exchange of flanking DNA. Third, the repair reaction is absolutely dependent on the products of genes uvsX, uvsY, 32, 46, and 59, which are also required for phage genomic recombination-dependent DNA replication. Fourth, the coupled repair/replication reaction is only partly dependent on endonuclease VII (gp49), suggesting that either another Holliday-junction-cleaving activity or an alternate resolution pathway is active during T4 infections. Because this repair reaction is directly coupled to extensive replication, it cannot be explained by the SZOSTAK et al. model. We present and discuss a model for the coupled repair/replication reaction, called the extensive chromosome replication model for dsb repair.     

Induction of mutations in bacteriophage T7 by gamma-rays: no influence of the SOS repair pathway

Under conditions where the reversion of an amber mutant of bacteriophage lambda by gamma-rays is enhanced by subjecting the irradiated phage to SOS repair, gamma-ray-induced reversion of two T7 ambers is not influenced by this error-prone bacterial repair system. The survival of T7 gamma-irradiated under anoxic conditions is somewhat enhanced by SOS repair, whereas the survival of phage irradiated under oxygen is not affected.     

A New Epistasis Group for the Repair of DNA Damage in Bacteriophage T4: Replication Repair

The gene 32 mutation amA453 sensitizes bacteriophage T4 to the lethal effects of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, methyl methanesulfonate and angelicin-mediated photodynamic irradiation when treated particles are plated on amber-suppressing host cells. The increased UV sensitivity caused by amA453 is additive to that caused by mutations in both the T4 excision repair (denV) and recombination repair (uvsWXY) systems, suggesting the operation of a third kind of repair system. The mutation uvs79, with many similarities to amA453 but mapping in gene 41, is largely epistatic to amA453. The mutation mms1, also with many similarities to amA453, maps close to amA453 within gene 32 and is largely epistatic to uvs79. Neither amA453 nor uvs79 affect the ratio of UV-induced mutational to lethal hits, nor does amA453 affect spontaneous or UV-enhanced recombination frequencies. Gene 32 encodes the major T4 ssDNA-binding protein (the scaffolding of DNA replication) and gene 41 encodes a DNA helicase, both being required for T4 DNA replication. We conclude that a third repair process operates in phage T4 and suggest that it acts during rather than before or after DNA replication.     

Bacteriophage T4 DNA polymerase determines the amount and specificity of ultraviolet mutagenesis

Summary Ultraviolet mutagenesis in bacteriophage T4 proceeds via error-prone repair (EPR) and requires the functional integrity of the uvsWXY system which mediates genetic recombination, recombinational repair, and mutability by diverse DNA damaging agents. Current opinion holds that mutagens acting through EPR generate DNA damage which blocks the progress of the replication complex and that EPR consists of the facilitated bypass of such inaccurate, damaged templates. This notion predicts that the T4 DNA polymerase (encoded by gene 43) mediates EPR in UV irradiated phage T4. This prediction is verified by the discovery that gene 43 mutations often enhance or reduce UV mutagenesis (which is scored by the induction of r mutants) and sometimes change its specificity.     

In vivo study of fidelity of DNA double-strand break repair in bacteriophage T4

A method for in vivo studying the fidelity of DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair in bacteriophage T4 has been developed. The frequency of reversion of rII mutations to the wild phenotype was measured in i segC+ x i ets 1 segCDelta crosses, where ets 1 is an insertion in the initial part of the rII gene carrying a sequence recognized by SegC endonuclease; i designates a rIIB or rIIA mutation located at some distance from ets 1, and segCDelta is a deletion in the segC gene. In such cross, a DSB occurs in the site of ets 1. Their repair involves genetic recombination and DNA replication in the neighborhood of ets 1. In parallel, the frequency of reversion of the same i mutant in the absence of DSBs is measured in i x i self-crosses. Reversions of different types (base substitutions, deletions, insertions) can be studied with the use of structurally different i mutations located at varying distances from ets 1. The reversion frequencies were determined for three rIIB mutations and one rIIA mutation. The results obtained suggest that DSB repair in bacteriophage T4 is a process of high fidelity with the rate of errors that does not essentially exceed that in the case of usual phage multiplication.     

gamma-Ray mutagenesis in bacteriophage T4 is not enhanced by oxygen.

As in the induction of r mutants in bacteriophage T4 by gamma-rays, the radiation-induced reversion of T4 amber mutants to wild-type was found to depend on the product of the DNA-repair gene x of the phage. Neither the efficiency of induction of r mutants nor the efficiency of reversion of ambers was enhanced by the presence of oxygen during irradiation. T4 differed in this respect from phage T7, for which no indication has been found that gamma-ray mutagenesis results from error-prone repair of DNA damage. Notwithstanding the substantial contribution of misrepair to mutation induction in T4, the efficiency of induction per base-pair observed for irradiation under oxygen was lower than that found previously for T7.     

Requirement of a Functional Gene 32 Product of Bacteriophage T4 in UV Repair

A temperature-sensitive mutation in gene 32 was used to study the role of gene 32 protein in the repair of UV-damaged DNA of bacteriophage T4. It was possible to distinguish between repair and replication of DNA at 33 C. At this temperature, DNA replication continued, and the intracellular DNA was stable. In contrast, no significant repair of UV-damaged DNA was observed even 40 min after the irradiation. Therefore, it was concluded that the defect in the repair mechanism at this temperature is not a simple consequence of the defect in DNA replication but that gene 32 apparently has an independent role for DNA repair. It was reported previously that gene 32 product is required for both T4 DNA replication and genetic recombination. In addition to these findings, this study has given direct evidence that, in vivo, this protein is also essential for the UV repair mechanism.     

Recombinational repair of hydrogen peroxide-induced damages in DNA of phage T4

Recently, hydrogen peroxide and its free-radical product, the hydroxyl radical (OH.) have been identified as major sources of DNA damage in living organisms. They occur as ubiquitous metabolic by-products and, in humans, cause several thousand damages in a cell's DNA per day. They are thought to be a major source of DNA damage leading to aging and cancer in multicellular organisms. This raises two questions. First, what pathways are used in repair of DNA damages caused by H2O2 and OH.? Second, a new theory has been proposed that sexual reproduction (sex) evolved to promote repair of DNA in the germ line of organisms. If this theory is correct, then the type of repair specifically available during the sexual process should be able to deal with important natural lesions such as those produced by H2O2 and OH. . Does this occur? We examined repair of hydrogen peroxide damage to DNA, using a standard bacteriophage T4 test system in which sexual reproduction is either permitted or not permitted. Post-replication recombinational repair and denV-dependent excision repair are not dependent on sex. Both of these processes had little or no effect on lethal H2O2 damage. Also, an enzyme important in repair of H2O2-induced DNA damage in the E. coli host cells, exonuclease III, was not utilized in repair of lethal H2O2 damage to the phage. However, multiplicity reactivation, a recombinational form of repair depending on the sexual interaction of two or more of the bacteriophage, was found to repair lethal H2O2 damages efficiently. Our results lend support to the repair hypothesis of sex. Also the homology-dependent recombinational repair utilized in the phage sexual process may be analogous to the homology-dependent recombination which is widespread in diploid eucaryotes. The recombinational repair pathway found in phage T4 may thus be a widely applicable model for repair of the ubiquitous DNA damage caused by endogenous oxidative reactions.     

Repair of topoisomerase-mediated DNA damage in bacteriophage T4

Type II topoisomerase inhibitors are used to treat both tumors and bacterial infections. These inhibitors stabilize covalent DNA-topoisomerase cleavage complexes that ultimately cause lethal DNA damage. A functional recombinational repair apparatus decreases sensitivity to these drugs, suggesting that topoisomerase-mediated DNA damage is amenable to such repair. Using a bacteriophage T4 model system, we have developed a novel in vivo plasmid-based assay that allows physical analysis of the repair products from one particular topoisomerase cleavage site. We show that the antitumor agent 4'-(9-acridinylamino)methanesulphon-m-anisidide (m-AMSA) stabilizes the T4 type II topoisomerase at the strong topoisomerase cleavage site on the plasmid, thereby stimulating recombinational repair. The resulting m-AMSA-dependent repair products do not form in the absence of functional topoisomerase and appear at lower drug concentrations with a drug-hypersensitive topoisomerase mutant. The appearance of repair products requires that the plasmid contain a T4 origin of replication. Finally, genetic analyses demonstrate that repair product formation is absolutely dependent on genes 32 and 46, largely dependent on genes uvsX and uvsY, and only partly dependent on gene 49. Very similar genetic requirements are observed for repair of endonuclease-generated double-strand breaks, suggesting mechanistic similarity between the two repair pathways.