Prophage lambda induces terminal recombination in Escherichia coli by inhibiting chromosome dimer resolution. An orientation-dependent cis-effect lending support to bipolarization of the terminus.

A prophage lambda inserted by homologous recombination near dif, the chromosome dimer resolution site of Escherichia coli, is excised at a frequency that depends on its orientation with respect to dif. In wild-type cells, terminal hyper- (TH) recombination is prophage specific and undetectable by a test involving deletion of chromosomal segments between repeats identical to those used for prophage insertion. TH recombination is, however, detected in both excision and deletion assays when Deltadif, xerC, or ftsK mutations inhibit dimer resolution: lack of specialized resolution apparently results in recombinogenic lesions near dif. We also observed that the presence near dif of the prophage, in the orientation causing TH recombination, inhibits dif resolution activity. By its recombinogenic effect, this inhibition explains the enhanced prophage excision in wild-type cells. The primary effect of the prophage is probably an alteration of the dimer resolution regional control, which requires that dif is flanked by suitably oriented (polarized) stretches of DNA. Our model postulates that the prophage inserted near dif in the deleterious orientation disturbs chromosome polarization on the side of the site where it is integrated, because lambda DNA, like the chromosome, is polarized by sequence elements. Candidate sequences are oligomers that display skewed distributions on each oriC-dif chromosome arm and on lambda DNA.