Spontaneous and cisplatin-induced recombination in Escherichia coli

To measure cisplatin (cis-diaminodichloroplatinum(II))-induced recombination, we have used a qualitative intrachromosomal assay utilizing duplicate inactive lac operons containing non-overlapping deletions and selection for Lac+ recombinants. The two operons are separated by one Mb and conversion of one of them yields the Lac+ phenotype. Lac+ formation for both spontaneous and cisplatin-induced recombination requires the products of the recA, recBC, ruvA, ruvB, ruvC, priA and polA genes. Inactivation of the recF, recO, recR and recJ genes decreased cisplatin-induced, but not spontaneous, recombination. The dependence on PriA and RecBC suggests that recombination is induced following stalling or collapse of replication forks at DNA lesions to form double strand breaks. The lack of recombination induction by trans-DDP suggests that the recombinogenic lesions for cisplatin are purine-purine intrastrand crosslinks.