Premium
The ATPase activity of RecA is needed to push the DNA strand exchange through heterologous regions.
Author(s) -
Rosselli W.,
Stasiak A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1991.tb05017.x
Subject(s) - atp hydrolysis , dna , homologous recombination , biology , branch migration , hydrolysis , heterologous , homologous chromosome , recombination , biochemistry , atpase , biophysics , enzyme , gene , holliday junction
The role of ATP hydrolysis during the RecA‐mediated recombination reaction is addressed in this paper. Recent studies indicated that the RecA‐promoted DNA strand exchange between completely homologous double‐ and single‐stranded DNA can be very efficient in the absence of ATP hydrolysis. In this work we demonstrate that the energy derived from the ATP hydrolysis is strictly needed to drive the DNA strand exchange through the regions where the interacting DNA molecules are not in a homologous register. Therefore, in addition to the role of the ATP hydrolysis in promoting the dissociation of RecA from the products of the recombination reaction, as described earlier, ATP hydrolysis also plays a crucial role in the actual process of strand exchange, provided that the lack of homologous register obstructs the process of branch migration.