Half a century of bacteriophage lambda recombinase: In vitro studies of lambda exonuclease and Red‐beta annealase

In vitro assembly of bacteriophage Lambda heads.

The assembly of plaque-forming particles in cell-free extracts of induced lambda lysogens was observed two ways. (i) DNA isolated from a lambda-related phage, 434 for example, is added to an extract of an induced lambda lysogen, and plaque-formers with the genotype of the added DNA are detected. (ii) One extract from an induced lambda lysogen that carries an amber mutation in one of the head ge...

Direction of travel of RecBC recombinase through bacteriophage lambda DNA.

We examined linkage relationships for RecBC-mediated recombination in lytic cycle crosses of lambda phages bearing two cohesive end sites (cos) oriented in the same direction. The relationships obtained imply that a given recombinant tends to be packaged from the cos site that is the nearer one to the right of the exchange. In view of the previously established coupling of entry of a recombinas...

Assembly of biologically active proheads of bacteriophage lambda in vitro.

Bacteriophage lambda DNA can be packaged in vitro into preformed proheads to generate plaque-forming units. This complex set of reactions is initiated when lambda DNA is mixed with the product of the phage A gene, and proheads. Because proheads are an essential early reactant, the system has potential as an assay for the formation of biologically active proheads. When extracts of cells infected...

Integrative recombination of bacteriophage lambda DNA in vitro.

An in vitro system for the production of integrative recombinant DNA of bacteriophage lambda is described. The in vitro recombination mimics the in vivo integration of viral DNA into host DNA in its requirement for int gene product, for the presence of a thermolabile component, and for the limitation of the recombination to a pair of specialized sites (attachment sites) on the DNA. The enzymes ...

Genetic map of bacteriophage lambda.