Regulation in repressor inactivation by RecA protein

Treatments that damage DNA or inhibit DNA synthesis in E. coli induce the expression of a set of functions called SOS functions that are involved in DNA repair, mutagenesis, arrest of cell division and prophage induction. Induction of SOS functions is triggered by inactivation of the LexA repressor or a phage repressor. Inactivation of these repressors results from their cleavage by the E. coli RecA protein in the presence of single-stranded DNA and a nucleoside triphosphate. We found that these cleavage reactions are controlled by two mechanisms in vitro: one is through the structural change of the RecA protein in the ternary complex, RecA-ssDNA-ATP-gamma-S. The active ternary complex is formed by binding of ATP-gamma-S to a complex of RecA protein and ssDNA. On the other hand, when the RecA protein binds to ATP-gamma-S prior to its binding to ssDNA, the resulting complex has no or only very weak cleavage activity toward the repressor. This structural change is negatively controlled by its C-terminal part. The loss of the 25 amino acid residues from the C-terminal leads the RecA protein to stable binding to dsDNA as well as ssDNA, and the protein takes the activated form for the repressor cleavage constitutively. The other mechanism is through the structural change of the repressor. The cleavage reaction of a phi 80cI repressor is greatly stimulated by the presence of d(G-G), and d(G-G) stimulates the cleavage by binding to the C-terminal half of the phi 80cI repressor. Moreover, the C-terminal fragment of the cleaved products of the 80cI repressor was able to cleave a phi 80cI-lambda chimeric repressor. These results strongly suggested that the active site of the repressor cleavage was located in the C-terminal domain of the repressor and that the C-terminal fragment produced by the cleavage could cleave the repressor.