![]()
|
|
||||||||
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 1, 355-360, January 7, 2005
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


From the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Received for publication, October 20, 2004
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
|
|
|---|
| INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
and III
, are found in all living organisms (13). This universal presence suggests a key cellular role of these enzymes that cannot be fulfilled by either the type IB or type II subfamily of DNA topoisomerases. In support of this notion, the viability is compromised upon inactivation of both type IA enzymes of Escherichia coli (4) or inactivation of the sole type IA enzyme of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe (5, 6). For the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
top3 cells lacking DNA topoisomerase III are viable, but they exhibit a complex phenotype including slow growth, high level of recombination, high sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents, and inability to produce viable spores (710). In mouse (11), as well as in Drosophila,1 inactivation of DNA topoisomerase III
leads to embryonic lethality. Whereas viability and development of both mouse and Drosophila appear normal in the absence of DNA topoisomerase III
(12, 13), mice lacking this enzyme exhibit a shortened life span and reduced fecundity and develop inflammatory responses in multiple organs (12, 14).
Insight into the molecular roles of the type IA enzymes came mostly from studies of microorganisms (reviewed in Refs. 13 and 15). For the two E. coli enzymes, there is strong biochemical and genetic evidence that DNA topoisomerase I has a major role in the preferential removal of negative supercoils in intracellular DNA, especially in regions behind the transcribing assemblies tracking along DNA (1519). In an in vitro plasmid replication system, DNA topoisomerase III but not I was shown to support the unlinking of the parental DNA strands to yield separate progeny DNA rings (20), implicating a role of DNA topoisomerase III in unlinking of DNA strands during replication (20). E. coli
topB mutants lacking DNA topoisomerase III exhibit no growth defect (21), however, and thus it appears that copying the parental strands might precede their complete unraveling, so that the plectonemically wound parental strands could be converted to a pair of intertwined double helices for decatenation by a type II DNA topoisomerase (22).
That the two E. coli type IA enzymes appear to play distinct cellular roles does not preclude the possibility, however, that they may also share a common function. In the yeasts, mutations in a number of genes involved in homologous recombination were shown to suppress the phenotype of yeast
top3 mutants, implicating a role of the topoisomerase in the resolution of a structure or structures formed in homologous recombination (23, 24). The growth defect of an E. coli topA topB double mutant was also reported to be suppressed by an additional mutation in recA, a key gene in homologous recombination (4). Based on a comparison of the mechanisms of different subfamilies of DNA topoisomerases, it has been suggested that a candidate for such a structure might be the double Holliday junction (2, 14).
In contrast to the dispensability of E. coli DNA topoisomerase III in terms of cell viability (21), inactivation of E. coli DNA topoisomerase I was generally thought to be lethal. Shortly after the identification of a set of viable E. coli
topA mutants (25), it was found that the
topA locus of these mutants could not be readily transduced into strain PLK831 (
trpE63 pyrF287 nirA trpR72 iclR7 gal25 rpsL195) by phage P1 (26, 27). The same recipient strain became more easily transduced, however, if it had acquired a compensatory change within certain regions of the E. coli chromosome, including gyrA and gyrB, which encode the two subunits of gyrase, and a region containing tolC, which encodes an outer membrane transporter (2629). These results suggested that
topA is lethal in the absence of compensatory genetic changes. A more direct demonstration of the lethality of topA deletion was provided by experiments demonstrating the thermal sensitivity of E. coli topA amber mutants expressing a thermal sensitive amber suppressor. Presumably, suppression of the amber codon at a permissive temperature would provide an adequate level of DNA topoisomerase I, but inactivation of the suppressor at 42 °C would abolish the synthesis of a functional DNA topoisomerase I and, consequently, cell growth (30, 31).
The idea that the topA gene is essential for cell growth was not reinforced, however, by studies in Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium closely related to E. coli. Early studies indicated that null mutations in an S. typhimurium gene termed supX, which was later shown to be identical to topA (28, 32), led to no lethal effects; there was no indication that viability of these topA cells depended on the presence of a compensatory mutation (33, 34). More recently, Shigella flexneri topA null mutants were also found to be viable without apparent compensatory mutations (35). Thus there appears to be a difference in topA requirement in different bacteria; it is this apparent difference that prompted us to reexamine the viability of E. coli mutants lacking DNA topoisomerase I.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Various pRM4-N derivatives were linearized by digestion with NotI. The large linear DNA segments lacking the replication origin of pRM4-N were purified by gel electrophoresis and used for gene replacement in the cysB-topA-trpE region of the E. coli chromosome, through homologous recombination mediated by recBCD, as described by Dabert and Smith (40), or the phage
Red recombination system, as described by Datsenko and Wanner (41). In the latter case, the thermal sensitive plasmid expressing the
Red functions
,
, and exo, pKD46, was kindly provided by Dr. B. L. Wanner (Purdue University). cam+ colonies were first selected in these experiments, and several tests were utilized to ascertain the incorporation of the expected changes in chromosomal DNA samples extracted from selected colonies. For mutants in which the topA promoter was replaced by a lac promoter, or mutants in which a large topA segment was deleted, amplification of these shortened regions by PCR was carried out to confirm the presence of these altered regions and the absence of the corresponding wild-type segments. Appropriate restriction digests were also analyzed by Southern blot hybridization for the presence of the cam marker and other changes, taking advantage of alterations in restriction sites in the G65N W79S mutants (37). In all cases, the selected cam+ colonies were found to have correctly incorporated the intended changes in the topA region. Transduction by phage P1vir was carried out according to the protocol described by Silhavy (51), using a phage stock kindly provided by Dr. N. Kleckner (Harvard University).
Analysis of Plasmid Linking Number DistributionsTwo-dimensional agarose gel electrophoresis and the use of Southern blot hybridization to monitor plasmid supercoiling were carried out as described previously (43).
| RESULTS |
|---|
|
|
|---|
|
The second class of mutant topA segments are denoted Plac-topA ts (L5F C662H) and Plac-topA ts (G65N W79S); they were derived from the corresponding members of the first class by replacing the topA regulatory region (39) with a lac promoter so that expression of the mutant topA genes can be turned on or off by the presence or absence of the lac inducer IPTG3 (the region replaced by the lac promoter is indicated by an X in Fig. 1). An additional DNA segment bearing the mutation Plac-topA (L5F), which encodes a protein with wild-type DNA topoisomerase I activity, was also used in the construction of a control. As will be described later, several mutants with the deletion of a large region in the topA region, marked by Y in Fig. 1, were also made in the later stages of the present study.
Viability of E. coli topA Mutants Expressing a Thermally Sensitive DNA Topoisomerase IReplacement of the chromosomal topA region by topA ts (L5F C662H) or topA ts (G65N W79S), using either the chi site-dependent homologous recombination method (40) or the
Red recombination system (41), was first carried out in two E. coli strains AB1369 and MG1655 (see Tables I and II for the genotypes of these and other strains used in this work). Strain AB1369 is a cysB- strain used in the original cloning of the E. coli topA gene (42), and strain MG1655 is a widely used laboratory strain. Transfected cell cultures were incubated at 30 °C in these experiments, except that in experiments using the
Red recombination system the cultures were kept at 37 °C for 1 h following transfection to eliminate the thermal sensitive plasmid pKD46 bearing the
Red genes.
|
|
|
|
E. coli
topA Cells Are Viable at 42 or 37 °C but Not at 30 °CIn a separate series of experiments, a
topA mutation, in which a large region of the topA coding sequence and the entire promoter of the gene (region indicated by Y in Fig. 1) were absent, was first introduced into strain MG1655 by DNA-mediated gene replacement at 42 °C, a temperature at which cells lacking DNA topoisomerase I are apparently viable, as described above. A transformant bearing this
topA locus, as ascertained by Southern blot hybridization and PCR, was then used as the donor strain in a transduction experiment using phage P1vir. As a control, MG1655 bearing Plac-topA ts (L5F C662H), which has been shown to grow well at 42 °C in the presence or absence of IPTG, was used as the donor strain in an identical phage P1vir infection. P1vir particles obtained in these infections were then used to transform AB1369 or MG1655 recipients that expressed a plasmid-borne ampicillin resistance gene. Transductants with an altered topA gene neighboring a chloramphenicol resistance marker was then scored on plates containing chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and IPTG at 42 °C (ampicillin was included to prevent contamination of ampicillin-resistant recipient cells by the ampicillin-sensitive donor cells). As shown by results tabulated in Table III, the frequencies of
topA and Plac-topA ts (L5F C662H) transductants, with either AB1369 or MG1655 as the recipient, were comparable. Thus there was no indication that the
topA transductants arose as rare events in which compensatory mutations were acquired.
|
topA transductants were streaked on fresh plates and incubated at 30 °C, however, no colonies were observable after a 1-day incubation period, indicating defective growth at this temperature. Strain MG1655
topA was similarly checked for growth at 37 °C, and comparable growth was observed for the topA deletion and its topA+ parent cells. In P1vir transduction experiments using strain RFM480 as the donor, which carries a Tn10 insertion in the coding region of topA (44), cells lacking DNA topoisomerase I were again found to grow well at 42 but not 30 °C.
Cold Sensitivity of E. coli topA Mutants and Excessive Negative Supercoiling of Intracellular DNAThe above experiments show that whereas DNA topoisomerase I is dispensable for cell growth at 42 or 37 °C, its absence is detrimental at 30 °C. This cold sensitivity of topA nulls appears to be a direct manifestation of DNA topoisomerase I deficiency, as the introduction of a multicopy plasmid pJW312 bearing a Plac-linked topA gene, which expresses an adequate amount of the enzyme in cells in the absence of IPTG (30), was found to restore growth of the
topA mutants to the same level of their topA+ parents at 30 °C.
Most interestingly, growth of the topA null mutants at 30 °C was also found to be significantly improved by the introduction of a plasmid ptac-hTop1 (45), which expresses human DNA topoisomerase I, a type IB enzyme that relaxes both positive and negative supercoils. Because the type IB and type IA DNA topoisomerases share few common features other than their ability to remove negative supercoils (13), this finding strongly suggests that the poor growth of E. coli topA mutants at 30 °C is tied to excessive negative supercoiling of intracellular DNA.
To test whether the cold sensitivity of topA mutants described so far might be a peculiar property of the genetic backgrounds of AB1369 and MG1655, similar experiments were carried out with additional topA+ E. coli strains including MM28 and W3110 (see Table I for genotypes). In one series of experiments, one of the Plac-topA ts mutations in strain MG1655 was introduced into the various recipients bearing a plasmid-borne ampicillin resistance gene by P1vir transduction in the presence of IPTG as before. Individual transductants resistant to both ampicillin and chloramphenicol were isolated, which were then tested for growth in the absence of IPTG. It was found that they grew as robust as their respective topA+ parents at 42 °C but grew very poorly relative to the parent cells at 30 °C. In a second series of experiments, the
topA mutation was similarly moved into the strains at 42 °C. After colony purification by streaking on fresh plates containing ampicillin and chloramphenicol, all transductants were found to grow well at 42 but not at 30 °C. These results show that for E. coli strains AB1369, MG1655, MM28, and W3110, DNA topoisomerase I is dispensable for growth at 42 °C but not 30 °C.
Viability of strain AS17 and BR83 cells at 42 °C, however, apparently requires DNA topoisomerase I, as reported previously (30, 31). Transduction of Plac-topA ts (L5F C662H) into either AS17 or BR83 in the presence of IPTG showed that the resulting cam+ transductants failed to form colonies on plates devoid of IPTG at either 30 or 42 °C.
Nonviability of topA topB Double MutantsWe have confirmed an earlier report that E. coli cells lacking both type IA DNA topoisomerases I and III are nonviable (4). A disrupted topB gene topB::Tn5 was first transduced from strain BL21(DE3) topB::Tn5 (20) into strain AB1369 Plac-topA ts (L5F C662H), at 30 °C and in the presence of IPTG. On plates without IPTG, however, the resulting Plac-topA ts topB::Tn5 double mutant was found to form no colonies at either 30 or 42 °C. When grown in a liquid culture, highly filamented double mutant cells were seen following the removal of IPTG, especially at 42 °C. By contrast, in the presence of IPTG these cells exhibited wild-type morphology at 42 °C.
The above results indicate that the topA ts (L5F C662H) gene product retains a low level of enzymatic activity at 42 °C, as mentioned earlier, and that this low level of topA activity is sufficient to sustain cell viability in a topB- background at 42 °C. A drastic reduction of Plac-topA expression upon IPTG removal, however, results in cessation of cell growth because of the depletion of all type IA DNA topoisomerase activities (4).
| DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
The results reported here indicate that at a temperature of 30 °C or lower, the growth of E. coli topA nulls is much compromised. Why does topA inactivation lead to cold sensitivity? There is strong evidence that E. coli DNA topoisomerase I plays a significant role in the removal of negative supercoils behind the transcription machinery, especially in cases when nascent transcripts are anchored to the cell membrane through insertion of nascent peptides into the membrane (1519); this conclusion is best demonstrated by experiments showing the hypernegative supercoiling of intracellular DNA upon topA inactivation, including the results depicted in Figs. 2 and 3. Whereas the finding that expression of a type IB DNA topoisomerase in E. coli topA mutants improves cell growth suggests a close link between the growth defect of the mutants and DNA hypernegative supercoiling, a molecular interpretation of the cold sensitivity of topA null mutants has yet to emerge. In general terms, a lower temperature could exacerbate a detrimental cellular reaction favored by an increase in DNA negative supercoiling. It has been suggested previously, for example, that topA inactivation might lead to defective growth through R-loop formation between a nascent transcript and the hypernegatively supercoiled DNA template behind the transcribing polymerase (44). In such a scenario, a lower temperature could directly exacerbate R-loop formation by preferentially stabilizing the RNA-DNA duplex relative to the DNA-DNA duplex, or exert an indirect effect determined by the temperature coefficients of the various steps in R-loop formation or elimination. Interpretations unrelated to R-loop formation could also be invoked. A lower temperature, for example, could further reduce the low activity of DNA topoisomerase III in negative supercoil removal, which could otherwise partially complement the action of DNA topoisomerase I. It should be interesting to carry out a comprehensive genetic screen to identify the various mutations that effect synthetic lethality in a topA null background at 42 °C.
The findings that E. coli DNA topoisomerase I is dispensable at higher growth temperatures (this work), but at least one of the type IA DNA topoisomerases is required for growth at any temperature (Ref. 4 and this work), also bring into focus that the two type IA enzymes DNA topoisomerase I and III are likely to share a key cellular function. As suggested previously, the essentiality of a minimal level of a type IA DNA topoisomerase activity is probably closely tied to the proper resolution of certain DNA structures, of which the double Holliday junction appears to be an attractive candidate (2, 14).
| FOOTNOTES |
|---|
Present address: Dept. of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. ![]()
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcwang{at}fas.harvard.edu.
1 T.-S. Hsieh, personal communication. ![]()
2 Y. Wang and J. C. Wang, unpublished data. ![]()
3 The abbreviation used is: IPTG, isopropyl 1-thio-
-D-galactopyranoside. ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
| REFERENCES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
J. H. Sutherland, B. Cheng, I-F. Liu, and Y.-C. Tse-Dinh SOS Induction by Stabilized Topoisomerase IA Cleavage Complex Occurs via the RecBCD Pathway J. Bacteriol., May 1, 2008; 190(9): 3399 - 3403. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. B. Khodursky Evolution, Adaptation, and Supercoiling J. Bacteriol., August 15, 2007; 189(16): 5789 - 5791. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
B. Cheng, I-F. Liu, and Y.-C. Tse-Dinh Compounds with antibacterial activity that enhance DNA cleavage by bacterial DNA topoisomerase I J. Antimicrob. Chemother., April 1, 2007; 59(4): 640 - 645. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
B. Cheng, S. Shukla, S. Vasunilashorn, S. Mukhopadhyay, and Y.-C. Tse-Dinh Bacterial Cell Killing Mediated by Topoisomerase I DNA Cleavage Activity J. Biol. Chem., November 18, 2005; 280(46): 38489 - 38495. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| All ASBMB Journals | Molecular and Cellular Proteomics |
| Journal of Lipid Research | ASBMB Today |