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PMID: 10735865 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Cellular responses to postsegregational killing by restriction-modification genes.

Journal of bacteriology ·Vol. 182 ·No. 8 ·2000-04-00 ·Pages 2218-29

Handa N, Ichige A, Kusano K, Kobayashi I

Abstract

Plasmids that carry one of several type II restriction modification gene complexes are known to show increased stability. The underlying mechanism was proposed to be the lethal attack by restriction enzyme at chromosomal recognition sites in cells that had lost the restriction modification gene complex. In order to examine bacterial responses to this postsegregational cell killing, we analyzed the cellular processes following loss of the EcoRI restriction modification gene complex carried by a temperature-sensitive plasmid in an Escherichia coli strain that is wild type with respect to DNA repair. A shift to the nonpermissive temperature blocked plasmid replication, reduced the increase in viable cell counts and resulted in loss of cell viability. Many cells formed long filaments, some of which were multinucleated and others anucleated. In a mutant defective in RecBCD exonuclease/recombinase, these cell death symptoms were more severe and cleaved chromosomes accumulated. Growth inhibition was also more severe in recA, ruvAB, ruvC, recG, and recN mutants. The cells induced the SOS response in a RecBC-dependent manner. These observations strongly suggest that bacterial cells die as a result of chromosome cleavage after loss of a restriction modification gene complex and that the bacterial RecBCD/RecA machinery helps the cells to survive, at least to some extent, by repairing the cleaved chromosomes. These and previous results have led us to hypothesize that the RecBCD/Chi/RecA system serves to destroy restricted "nonself" DNA and repair restricted "self" DNA.

MeSH Terms
Chromosomes, Bacterial/metabolism Colony Count, Microbial DNA Damage DNA Repair DNA, Bacterial/metabolism Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI/genetics,metabolism Escherichia coli/cytology,enzymology,genetics,growth & development Escherichia coli Proteins Exodeoxyribonuclease V Exodeoxyribonucleases/metabolism Models, Genetic Rec A Recombinases/metabolism SOS Response, Genetics Site-Specific DNA-Methyltransferase (Adenine-Specific)/genetics,metabolism
Chemicals
DNA, Bacterial Escherichia coli Proteins DNA modification methylase EcoRI Site-Specific DNA-Methyltransferase (Adenine-Specific) Rec A Recombinases Exodeoxyribonucleases Exodeoxyribonuclease V exodeoxyribonuclease V, E coli Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI
Authors & Affiliations
4 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Handa N
Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Shirokanedai, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan.
Ichige A
Kusano K
Kobayashi I
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Article Info
Journal
Journal of bacteriology
Abbr.
J Bacteriol
ISSN
0021-9193
DOI
10.1128/JB.182.8.2218-2229.2000
Published
2000-04-00
Pages
2218-29
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
2985120R
PMCID
PMC111271
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1128/JB.182.8.2218-2229.2000 PMC Full Text View journal details
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