Using a direct enrichment and screening procedure, mutants of Escherichia coli have been isolated in which recombination frequencies for several intragenic Hfr X F- crosses are significantly higher (twofold to sixfold) than in the parental strains. These hyper-recombination mutations comprised five new mutS- and one new mutL- allele. Together with other known mut- alleles, they were analyzed fo...

The Vsr endonuclease of Escherichia coli initiates the repair of T/G mismatches caused by deamination of 5-methylcytosine to thymine. In this paper, we examine the capacity of Vsr to prevent CG-to-TA mutations in cells with increased transcription of the cytosine methylase gene (dcm). We find that sufficient Vsr is produced by a single chromosomal copy of vsr to prevent mutagenesis. We also inv...

Bacteria closely related to Bacillus pumilus cannot be distinguished from such other species as B. safensis, B. stratosphericus, B. altitudinis and B. aerophilus simply by 16S rRNA gene sequence. In this report, 76 marine strains were subjected to phylogenetic analysis based on 7 housekeeping genes to understand the phylogeny and biogeography in comparison with other origins. A phylogenetic tre...

Previous studies have demonstrated that the Escherichia coli MutHLS mismatch-repair system can process UV-irradiated DNA in vivo and that the human MSH2.MSH6 mismatch-repair protein binds more strongly in vitro to photoproduct/base mismatches than to "matched" photoproducts in DNA. We tested the hypothesis that mismatch repair directed against incorrect bases opposite photoproducts might reduce...

UvrD is a superfamily I DNA helicase with well documented roles in excision repair and methyldirected mismatch repair (MMR) in addition to poorly understood roles in replication and recombination. The MutL protein is a homodimeric DNAstimulated ATPase that plays a central role in MMR in Escherichia coli. This protein has been characterized as the master regulator of mismatch repair since it int...