Processive recombination by the phage Mu Gin system: implications for the mechanisms of DNA strand exchange, DNA site alignment, and enhancer action

Abstract

The Gin DNA invertase of bacteriophage Mu carries out processive recombination in which multiple rounds of exchange follow synaptic complex formation. The stereostructure of the knotted products determined by electron microscopy establishes critical features of site synapsis and DNA exchange. Surprisingly, the invertase knots substrates with directly repeated sites as well as those with inverted sites. The results suggest that the Gin synaptic complex contains three mutually perpendicular dyads; one is the axis of site rotation during exchange, and they cause inverted and direct site substrates to form a similar synaptic complex. The extensive knotting by Gin has implications for the energetics of recombination and shows that the enhancer for recombination is required only at an early stage, and thus may normally operate in a hit-and-run fashion.