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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Biophysical Characterization of Flagellar Motor Functions
Published on: January 18, 2017
The bacterial RecA protein as a motor protein
1Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1544, USA. cox@biochem.wisc.edu
Abstract:
The bacterial RecA protein plays a central role in the repair of stalled replication forks, double-strand break repair, general recombination, induction of the SOS response, and SOS mutagenesis. The major activity of RecA in DNA metabolism is the promotion of DNA strand exchange reactions. RecA is the prototype for a ubiquitous family of proteins but exhibits a few activities that some of its eukaryotic, archaeal, and viral homologs appear to lack. In particular, the bacterial RecA protein possesses an apparent motor function that is not evident in the reactions promoted by the eukaryotic Rad51 protein. This motor may be needed only in a subset of the DNA metabolism contexts in which RecA protein functions. Models for the coupling of DNA strand exchange to ATP hydrolysis are examined.
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