Repair and Mutagenesis of Plasmid DNA Modified by Ultraviolet
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Proc. Nati Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 79, pp. 4133-4137, July 1982 Genetics Repair and mutagenesis of plasmid DNA modified by ultraviolet irradiation or N-acetoxy-N-2-acetylaminofluorene (excision repair/postreplication repair/plasmid pKO482) S. E. SCHMID, M. P. DAUNE, AND R. P. P. FUCHS* Institut de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Biophysique, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France Communicated by James A. Miller, March 29, 1982 ABSTRACT Plasmid DNA was modified in vitro to various The plasmid used in this system, pKO482, contains a gene extents with N-acetoxy-N-2-acetylaminofluorene or UV irradia- coding for 3lactamase, which provides for ampicillin resis- tion. The modified plasmid DNAs were then used to transform tance, and a second gene, galK, which codes for the enzyme Escherichia coli strains having different repair capabilities. Both galactokinase. All of the recipient bacterial strains used were survival and mutagenesis frequencies of the plasmid were mea- ampicillin sensitive and unable to metabolize galactose due to sured as a function ofthe number oflesions per plasmid molecule. a galK mutation in their own genomic DNA. Transformed cells The majority ofN-2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF) adducts, like thy- were selected on MacConkey's agar containing ampicillin and mine dimers, were repaired by the excision (uvrA+-dependent) galactose. Complementation of the galK mutation of the host pathway. In rec' strains, dose-dependent mutagenesis occurred cell the of the allows in either AAF- or UV-modified plasmid DNA. This is in contrast by galactokinase gene plasmid galactose with results obtained in recA- strains, in which only AAF adducts fermentation and the formation ofa red colony on MacConkey's gave rise to a lower, but dose-dependent, mutagenesis frequency. agar. Mutation in the plasmid galK gene results in a visually In these recA- strains there was no UV mutagenesis. Unlike what distinguishable white colony. is observed with phages, induction of the "SOS" functions by UV We studied both plasmid survival and mutation frequency irradiation ofthe bacteria prior to transformation did not increase of the galK gene in pKO482 modified by either UV irradiation the survival or the mutagenesis of the plasmid. or N-acetoxy-N-2-acetylaminofluorene (N-AcO-AAF). Results obtained by using host cells with wild-type DNA repair capac- Two major types of DNA repair that have been found in Esch- ities are compared to those obtained by using uvrA, recA, and erichia coli are excision repair and postreplication repair (refer uvrA recA mutant strains. In addition, the effect of UV induc- to refs. 1-3 for excellent reviews). Excision repair is dependent tion of SOS functions was also studied. upon the product of the uvrA' gene along with several other gene products and is generally considered accurate and not in- MATERIALS AND METHODS volved in the formation of mutations. Postreplication repair is Bacteria and Plasmid DNA. The E. coli strains used were dependent on the recA+ gene product. This gene product ap- AB 1157 (wild-type strain), AB 1886 (uvrA-), AB 2463 (recA-), pears to be involved in the control ofexpression ofother genes and AB 2480 (uvrA- recA-) (6). All four strains carry a mutation coding for two interrelated processes that can operate to repair in the galK gene. Plasmid pKO482, 2.8 X 106 daltons, was con- gaps left in daughter strand DNA molecules after the replication structed (7) and generously supplied by K. McKenney, H. Shi- of DNA that contains damage left unrepaired by excision repair. matake, and M. Rosenberg (National Cancer Institute, Be- These two interrelated postreplication processes are recom- thesda, MD). binational and "SOS" repair. Recombinational processes are Preparation of Plasmid DNA. Plasmid DNA was purified thought to be error free. The dependence of UV-induced mu- either on a small scale (0.5 ml of culture) by the procedure of tations on the presence of a functional recA+ gene, however, Birnboim and Doly (8) or on a larger scale (1 liter ofculture) by has led to the hypothesis that there is a related SOS repair func- an adaptation ofthe procedures developed by Helinski and co- tion that is error prone. The recA+-dependent repair processes workers (9, 10). have been found to be induced by the presence of UV-damaged Modification of Plasmid DNA with UV Irradiation. Plasmid DNA-as well as by many other types of DNA damage. pKO482 DNA at a concentration of 20 jig/ml in 10 mM Tris- Although repair and mutagenesis have been studied for ge- HCVl10 mM CaCl2/10 mM MgCl2 (pH 7.0) was irradiated in nomic and phage DNA in E. coli, little is known about the ef- 1.0-ml portions in 54-mm-diameter Petri dishes with a germi- fects of the different repair systems of the host E. coli on plas- cidal lamp (15 W, Phillips). Radiant flux was measured with a mid DNA (1). We report here the results of studies using a UVX Digital Radiometer (Ultra-Violet Products, San Gabriel, system recently developed by Kakefuda and co-workers (4, 5) CA). The number ofthymine dimers formed per plasmid mol- in which plasmid DNA is modified in vitro with DNA-damaging ecule was calculated by using apreviously published conversion agents and then used to transform strains ofE. coli with variable factor (11) of0.041% thymine bases converted from 10 J/m2 of DNA-repair capacities. In vitro modification ofthe DNA allows UV. for an accurate quantitative assessment ofthe number ofdamage Modification of Plasmid DNA with N-AcO-AAF. N-AcO- sites per DNA molecule prior to exposure to in vivo repair sys- [3H]AAF (173 Ci/mol; 1 Ci = 3.7 x 1010 becquerels) was syn- tems. In addition, this system has the advantage of excluding thesized as described (12) from 2-nitro[ring-3H]fluorene (Com- any toxic effects of the DNA damaging agent on other cell pro- missariat a l'Energie Atomique, Saclay, France). The N-AcO- cesses or structures. [3H]AAF (42.5 ,uM) was then allowed to react for various The publication costs ofthis article were defrayed in part by page charge Abbreviations: AAF, acetylaminofluorene; N-AcO-AAF, N-acetoxy-N- payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertise- 2-acetylaminofluorene. ment" in accordance with 18 U. S. C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. * To whom reprint requests should be addressed. 4133 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 4134 Genetics: Schmid et aL Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 79 (1982) lengths of time with plasmid DNA (50 Ag/ml) in 10 mM However, after transformation with pKO482, which contains Tris.HCV1 mM EDTA (pH' 8.0) containing 5% (vol/vol) a galK gene, these strains will normally form red colonies on ethanol. Removal ofunbound fluorene derivativeswas achieved MacConkey's agar due to restoration of the galactose metabo- by four successive ethanol precipitations. The number ofN-2- lism pathway and, consequently, production of an acidic envi- acetylaminofluorene molecules (AAF adducts) covalently bound ronment. A visually distinctwhite colony is formed ifa mutation per plasmid DNA molecule was determined by scintillation has occurred in the plasmid galK gene ofthe plasmid pKO482. counting of tritium radioactivity and measuring the nucleotide Verification ofthe presence of a plasmid galK gene mutation concentration from the absorbance at 260 nm. in thewhite colonieswas performedbyextraction ofthe plasmid Preparation and UV Irradiation of the Bacteria Prior to DNA as described above followed by (i) agarose gel electro- Transformation. Where indicated, suspensions ofE. coli in LB phoresis and (ii) retransformation into the AB 1157 strain to medium (2-4 X 108 cells per ml) were irradiated on ice with obtain only white colonies. Five percent ofthe more than 1,100 agermicidal lamp (15 W, Phillips). The dose ofUVwas adjusted mutants obtained in these experiments were randomly selected in each strain to give approximately 50% survival-i.e., 166 J/ for this procedure, and positive results were obtained in all m2 for AB 1157, 7.9 J/m2 for AB 1886, 2.3 J/m2 for AB 2463, cases. and 0.7 J/m2 for AB 2480. All subsequent procedures were car- Mutation frequency is expressed as the number ofwhite col- ried out under semidark conditions to minimize in vivo pho- onies pertotalnumberoftransformants. Thenumberofcolonies toreactivation of the thymine dimers. Cultures were next in- scored to obtain the mutation frequency for each experimental cubated for an additional 30 min at 370C to allow expression of condition and strain ranged between at least 20,000 for un- the SOS functions prior to the transformation step. These con- modified plasmid and at least 1,000 at the highest plasmid mod- ditions have been shown to be optimal for induction ofthe SOS ification levels reported. response in E. coli as measured by Weigle reactivation and mutagenesis in UV-irradiated phage A (13-15). RESULTS Transformation with Plasmid DNA and Selection for Trans- formed Cells. The E. coli were transformed with pKO482 by Relative Importance of uvrA+- and recA+-Dependent Re- the procedure of Mandel and Higa (16) as modified by Cohen pair Processes to Survival of Plasmid DNA Damaged by UV et aL (17). Selection for transformed cells was made by plating Irradiation or N-AcO-AAF Binding. Fig. 1 Left shows the de- on MacConkey's agar (18) containing 2% galactose and ampi- crease in survival ofplasmid pKO482 DNA containing increas- cillin at 50 Ag/ml and incubating overnight at 370C: the (3-lac- ing numbers ofthymine dimers when used to transform strains tamase gene of pKO482 provides ampicillin resistance to the of E. coli with different DNA repair capabilities. Thymine di- transformed cells. The transformation efficiency was found to mers are thought to be the major DNA lesion created by UV be a linear function of both plasmid and cell concentrations irradiation, although other less frequent types of UV lesions when the above conditions were used.