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Journal of Bacteriology, April 2000, p. 2218-2229, Vol. 182, No. 8
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Cellular Responses to Postsegregational Killing by
Restriction-Modification Genes
Naofumi
Handa,
Asao
Ichige,
Kohji
Kusano,
and
Ichizo
Kobayashi*
Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of
Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Shirokanedai, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan
Received 16 August 1999/Accepted 13 January 2000
Plasmids that carry one of several type II restriction modification
gene complexes are known to show increased stability. The underlying
mechanism was proposed to be the lethal attack by restriction enzyme at
chromosomal recognition sites in cells that had lost the restriction
modification gene complex. In order to examine bacterial responses to
this postsegregational cell killing, we analyzed the cellular processes
following loss of the EcoRI restriction modification gene
complex carried by a temperature-sensitive plasmid in an
Escherichia coli strain that is wild type with respect to
DNA repair. A shift to the nonpermissive temperature blocked plasmid
replication, reduced the increase in viable cell counts and resulted in
loss of cell viability. Many cells formed long filaments, some of which
were multinucleated and others anucleated. In a mutant defective in
RecBCD exonuclease/recombinase, these cell death symptoms were more
severe and cleaved chromosomes accumulated. Growth inhibition was also
more severe in recA, ruvAB, ruvC,
recG, and recN mutants. The cells induced the
SOS response in a RecBC-dependent manner. These observations strongly
suggest that bacterial cells die as a result of chromosome cleavage
after loss of a restriction modification gene complex and that the
bacterial RecBCD/RecA machinery helps the cells to survive, at least to
some extent, by repairing the cleaved chromosomes. These and previous
results have led us to hypothesize that the RecBCD/Chi/RecA system
serves to destroy restricted "nonself" DNA and repair restricted
"self" DNA.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Molecular Biology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Shirokanedai, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan. Phone: (81) 3-5449-5326. Fax: (81)
3-5449-5422 and -5645. E-mail:
ikobaya{at}ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp.

Dedicated to Tokio
Kogoma.

Present address: Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI
53706.
Journal of Bacteriology, April 2000, p. 2218-2229, Vol. 182, No. 8
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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