The bacteriophage P1 lytic replicon: Directionality of replication and cis-acting elements

Gerald Cohen*, Etti Or, Wolfgang Minas, Nat L. Sternberg

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

We have identified the direction of replication of a bacteriophage P1 lytic replicon. This was accomplished by constructing λP1 lysogens that contain a functional P1 lytic replicon and analysing which of two nearby bacterial DNA markers flanking the λ prophage were amplified when that replicon was activated. We demonstrate that both DNA markers are coordinately amplified, a result consistent with lytic replication proceeding in a bidirectional fashion. To analyze the role of various elements comprising the lytic replicon, we assessed the ability of a wild type replicon to complement a defective replicon that contains a transposon inserted between an essential lytic replication gene (repL) and the promoter (P53) at which transcription of that gene is initiated. We show that the wild type replicon cannot complement the mutant replicon. The simplest hypothesis to explain this result is that either P53 or repL protein functions primarily in cis for the replicon to operate.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)151-155
Number of pages5
JournalGene
Volume175
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Oct 1996

Keywords

  • DNA replication
  • Lambda-P1 prophages
  • P1 lytic replicon

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