The Cox protein is a modulator of directionality in bacteriophage P2 site-specific recombination

The P2 Cox protein is known to repress the Pc promoter, which controls the expression of the P2 immunity repressor C. It has also been shown that Cox can activate the late promoter PLL of the unrelated phage P4. By this process, a P2 phage infecting a P4 lysogen is capable of inducing replication of the P4 genome, an example of viral transactivation. In this report, we present evidence that Cox is also directly involved in both prophage excision and phage integration. While purified Cox, in addition to P2 Int and Escherichia coli integration host factor, was required for attR x attL (excisive) recombination in vitro, it was inhibitory to attP x attB (integrative) recombination. The same amounts of Int and integration host factor which mediated optimal excisive recombination in vitro also mediated optimal integrative recombination. We quantified and compared the relative efficiencies of attB, attR, and attL in recombination with attP and discuss the functional implications of the results. DNase I protection experiments revealed an extended 70-bp Cox-protected region on the right arm of attP, centered at about +60 bp from the center of the core sequence. Gel shift assays suggest that there are two Cox binding sites within this region. Together, these data support the theory that in vivo, P2 can exert control over the direction of recombination by either expressing Int alone or Int and Cox together.