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Journal of Bacteriology, February 1999, p. 1352-1355, Vol. 181, No. 4
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Bacteriophage T4 gp2 Interferes with Cell Viability and with Bacteriophage Lambda Red Recombination

Krishnarao Appasani,1,dagger David S. Thaler,2 and Edward B. Goldberg1,*

Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02111-1800,1 and Sackler Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Informatics, Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021-63992

Received 24 June 1996/Accepted 7 February 1997

The T4 head protein, gp2, promotes head-tail joining during phage morphogenesis and is also incorporated into the phage head. It protects the injected DNA from degradation by exonuclease V during the subsequent infection. In this study, we show that recombinant gp2, a very basic protein, rapidly kills the cells in which it is expressed. To further illustrate the protectiveness of gp2 for DNA termini, we compare the effect of gp2 expression on Red-mediated and Int-mediated recombination. Red-mediated recombination is nonspecific and requires the transient formation of double-stranded DNA termini. Int-mediated recombination, on the other hand, is site specific and does not require chromosomal termini. Red-mediated recombination is inhibited to a much greater extent than is Int-mediated recombination. We conclude from the results of these physiological and genetic experiments that T4 gp2 expression, like Mu Gam expression, kills bacteria by binding to double-stranded DNA termini, the most likely mode for its protection of entering phage DNA from exonuclease V.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University Medical School, Boston, MA 02111-1800. Phone: (617) 636-6754. Fax: (617) 636-0337. E-mail: egoldber{at}opal.tufts.edu.

dagger Present address: Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.

Journal of Bacteriology, February 1999, p. 1352-1355, Vol. 181, No. 4
0021-9193/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


This article has been cited by other articles:

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