The Escherichia coli UV endonuclease (correndonuclease II)

An endonuclease from Escherichia coli which acts specificially upon UV-irradiated DNA (correndonuclease II) and is absent from the uvrA and uvrB mutants has been isolated and partially chacterized. The enzyme is present in normal amounts in the urvC mutant. It elutes from phosphocellulose at about 0.25 M potassium phosphate (pH 7.5) and passes through dialysis tubing. The enzyme binds tightly to UV-irradiated DNA but does not bind to unirradiated DNA. The enzyme incises irradiated DNA to the 5' side of a pyrimidine dimer and leaves a 5'-phosphoryl terminus which can be resealed with polynucleotide ligase. The Km of the enzyme is about 1.5 X 10(-8) M dimers. Endonucleolytic activity of the enzyme is inhibited by caffeine with a KI of about 10mM.