Differences in Mutagenic and Recombinational DNA Repair in Enterobacteria

The incidence of recombinational DNA repair and inducible mutagenic DNA repair has been examined in Escherichia coli and 11 related species of enterobacteria. Recombinational repair was found to be a common feature of the DNA repair repertoire of at least 6 genera of enterobacteria. This conclusion is based on observations of (i) damage-induced synthesis of RecA-like proteins, (ii) nucleotide hybridization between E. coli recA sequences and some chromosomal DNAs, and (iii) recA-negative complementation by plasmids showing SOS-inducible expression of truncated E. coli recA genes. The mechanism of DNA damage-induced gene expression is therefore sufficiently conserved to allow non-E. coli regulatory elements to govern expression of these cloned truncated E. coli recA genes. In contrast, the process of mutagenic repair, which uses umuC+ umuD+ gene products in E. coli, appeared less widespread. Little ultraviolet light-induced mutagenesis to rifampicin resistance was detected outside the genus Escherichia, and even within the genus induced mutagenesis was detected in only 3 out of 6 species. Nucleotide hybridization showed that sequences like the E. coli umuCD+ gene are not found in these poorly mutable organisms. Evolutionary questions raised by the sporadic incidence of inducible mutagenic repair are discussed.