State of prophage Mu DNA upon induction

Abstract

We have compared the process of prophage lambda induction with that of prophage Mu. According to the Campbell model, rescue of lambda DNA from the host DNA involves reversal of lambda integration such that the prophage DNA is excised from the host chromosome. We have monitored this event by locating the prophage DNA with a technique in which DNA of the lysogenic cells is cleaved with a restriction endonuclease and fractionated in agarose gels. The DNA fragments are denatured in gels, transferred to a nitrocellulose paper, and hybridized with 32P-labeled mature phage DNA. The fragments containing prophage DNA become visible after autoradiography. Upon prophage lambda induction, the phage-host junction fragments disappear and the fragment containing the lambda att site appears. No such excision is seen in prophage Mu. The Mu-host junction fragments remain intact well into the lytic cycle, when Mu DNA has undergone many rounds of replication and apparently many copies of Mu DNA have been integrated into the host DNA. Therefore, we postulate that Mu DNA replicates in situ and the replication generates a form of Mu DNA active in the integrative recombination between Mu DNA and host DNA. This type of mechanism may be common to many transposable elements.