Regulation of dnaB function in DNA replication in Escherichia coli by dnaC and lambda P gene products

The dnaB protein of Escherichia coli, a multifunctional DNA-dependent ribonucleotide triphosphatase and dATPase, cross-links to ATP on ultraviolet irradiation under conditions that support rNTPase and dATPase activities of dnaB protein. The covalent cross-linking to ATP is specifically inhibited by ribonucleotides and dATP. Tryptic peptide mapping demonstrates that ATP cross-links to only the 33-kDa tryptic fragment (Fragment II) of dnaB protein. The presence of single-stranded DNA alters the covalent labeling of dnaB protein by ATP, suggesting a possible role of DNA on the mode of nucleotide binding by dnaB protein. Present studies demonstrate that the dnaC gene product binds ribonucleotides independent of dnaB protein. On dnaB-dnaC protein complex formation, covalent incorporation of ATP to dnaB protein decreases approximately 70% with a concomitant increase of ATP incorporation to dnaC protein by approximately 3-fold. The mechanism of this phenomenon has been analyzed in detail by titrating dnaB protein with increasing amounts of dnaC protein. The binding of dnaC protein to dnaB protein appears to be a noncooperative process. The lambda P protein, which interacts with dnaB protein in the bacteriophage lambda DNA replication, does not bind ATP in the presence or absence of dnaB protein. However, lambda P protein enhances the covalent incorporation of ATP to dnaB protein approximately 4-fold, suggesting a direct physical interaction between lambda P and dnaB proteins with a probable change in the modes of nucleotide binding to dnaB protein. The lambda P protein likely forms a lambda P-dnaB-ATP dead-end ternary complex. The implications of these results in the E. coli and bacteriophage lambda chromosomal DNA replication are discussed.