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Journal of Bacteriology, July 2007, p. 5101-5107, Vol. 189, No. 14
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00409-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Effect of a recD Mutation on DNA Damage Resistance and Transformation in Deinococcus radiodurans ^,

Matthew D. Servinsky and Douglas A. Julin^*

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Program in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

Received 20 March 2007/ Accepted 4 May 2007

The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans is resistant to extremely high levels of DNA-damaging agents such as UV light, ionizing radiation, and chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide and mitomycin C. The organism is able to repair large numbers of double-strand breaks caused by ionizing radiation, in spite of the lack of the RecBCD enzyme, which is essential for double-strand DNA break repair in Escherichia coli and many other bacteria. The D. radiodurans genome sequence indicates that the organism lacks recB and recC genes, but there is a gene encoding a protein with significant similarity to the RecD protein of E. coli and other bacteria. We have generated D. radiodurans strains with a disruption or deletion of the recD gene. The recD mutants are more sensitive than wild-type cells to irradiation with gamma rays and UV light and to treatment with hydrogen peroxide, but they are not sensitive to treatment with mitomycin C and methyl methanesulfonate. The recD mutants also show greater efficiency of transformation by exogenous homologous DNA. These results are the first indication that the D. radiodurans RecD protein has a role in DNA damage repair and/or homologous recombination in the organism.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Phone: (301) 405-1821. Fax: (301) 314-9121. E-mail: djulin{at}umd.edu

Published ahead of print on 11 May 2007.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

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Journal of Bacteriology, July 2007, p. 5101-5107, Vol. 189, No. 14
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00409-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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• Dillingham, M. S., Kowalczykowski, S. C. (2008). RecBCD Enzyme and the Repair of Double-Stranded DNA Breaks. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 72: 642-671 [Abstract] [Full Text]