The EMBO Journal Vol.17 No.14 pp.4158–4165, 1998 Effects of purified SeqA protein on oriC-dependent DNA replication in vitro Sture Wold, Erik Boye, Steven Slater1,2, elimination or SeqA overproduction in mutant strains com- Nancy Kleckner1 and Kirsten Skarstad3 promised for initiation. Subsequent studies specifically identified SeqA as a regulatory factor for initiation. In the Department of Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, absence of SeqA, initiation occurs at a lower cell mass Montebello, 0310 Oslo, Norway and 1Department of Molecular and compared with wild-type cells and origins may be initiated Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA twice in the same cell division period (Boye et al., 1996). 2Present address: Monsanto Company, 700 Chesterfield Parkway, Secondly, SeqA is essential for sequestration (Lu et al., N. St Louis, MO 63198, USA 1994). These two effects of SeqA are distinguished in part 3Corresponding author by the methylation status of GATC sites in oriC: initiation e-mail:
[email protected] occurs on fully methylated DNA whereas sequestration affects oriC in the hemimethylated state that arises as a In vivo studies suggest that the Escherichia coli SeqA result of its replication. protein modulates replication initiation in two ways: by Biochemical analysis has shown that SeqA binds oriC in delaying initiation and by sequestering newly replicated a methylation-modulated fashion (Slater et al., 1995). SeqA origins from undergoing re-replication. As a first binds fully methylated oriC specifically via a highly co- approach towards understanding the biochemical bases operativebutrelativelylowaffinityinteraction.Thisbinding for these effects, we have examined the effects of requires multiple determinants throughout oriC (Slater purified SeqA protein on replication reactions per- et al., 1995), probably explaining why SeqA is reported not formed in vitro on an oriC plasmid.