RadA is highly conserved in bacteria and belongs to the RecA/RadA/Rad51 protein su-perfamily found in bacteria,archaea and eukarya. In Archaea,it plays a critical role in homologous re-combination process due to its RecA-like function. In Escherichia coli,it takes part in conjugational recom-bination and DNA repair but is not as important as that of archaea. Using PSI-BLAST searches,we found that Deinococcus radiodurans RadA had a higher similarity to that of bacteria than archaea and eukarya. Disruption of radA gene in D. radiodurans resulted in a modestly decreased resistance to gamma radiation and ultraviolet,but had no effect on the resistance to hydrogen peroxide. Complementa-tion of the radA disruptant by both E. coli radA and D. radiodurans radA could fully restore its resistance to gamma radiation and ultraviolet irradiation. Further domain function analyses of D. radiodurans RadA showed that the absence of the zinc finger domain resulted in a slightly more sensitive phenotype to gamma and UV radiation than that of the radA mutant,while the absence of the Lon protease domain exhib-ited a slightly increased resistance to gamma and UV radiation. These data suggest that D. radiodurans RadA does play an important role in the DNA damage repair processes and its three different domains have different functions.
ZHOU Qing ZHANG Xinjue XU Hong XU Bujin HUA Yuejin
The MutT/Nudix superfamily proteins repair DNA damage and play a role in human health and disease. In this study, we examined two different cases of double MutT/Nudix domain-containing proteins from eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Firstly, these double domain proteins were discovered in Drosophila, but only single Nudix domain proteins were found in other animals. The phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the protein sequence of Nudix_N and Nudix_C from Drosophila, and Nudix from other animals. The phylogenetic analysis suggested that the double Nudix domain proteins might have undergone a gene duplication-speciation-fusion process. Secondly, two genes of the MutT family, DR0004 and DR0329, were fused by two mutT gene segments and formed double MutT domain protein genes in Deinococcus radiodurans. The evolutionary tree of bacterial MutT proteins suggested that the double MutT domain proteins in D. radiodurans probably resulted from a gene duplication-fusion event after speciation. Gene duplication-fusion is a basic and important gene innovation mechanism for the evolution of double MutT/Nudix domain proteins. Independent gene duplication-fusion events resulted in similar domain architectures of different double MutT/Nudix domain proteins.
The functional analysis of dr1127,a novel gene in Deinococcus radiodurans was performed in this pa-per. The dr1127 gene was found occasionally in our microarray and 2-DE gel experiments. Mutation of the dr1127 gene decreased the γ-radiation and H2O2 resistance of D. radiodurans,and weakened the scavenging abilities of cell extracts for free radicals (superoxide anion,hydrogen peroxide,and hy-droxyl radical). Further oxidative damage assays demonstrated that the purified DR1127 protein of D. radiodurans could bind to double stranded DNA in vitro and protect DNA from oxidative damage in this way. These results suggest that the dr1127 gene is an important gene that can maintain γ-radiation and oxidative resistance in D. radiodurans and may take part in the oxidative stress process.
The conclusion based on transmission electron microscopy, "the tightly packed ring-like nucleoid of the Deinococcus radiodurans R1 is a key to radioresistance", has instigated lots of debates. In this study, according to the previous research of PprI’s crucial role in radioresistance of D. radiodurans, we have attempted to examine and compare the nucleoid morphology differences among wild-type D. ra-diodurans R1 strain, pprI function-deficient mutant (YR1), and pprI function-complementary strains (YR1001, YR1002, and YR1004) before and after exposure to ionizing irradiation. Fluorescence mi-croscopy images indicate: (1) the majority of nucleoid structures in radioresistant strain R1 cells ex-hibit the tightly packed ring-like morphology, while the pprI function-deficient mutant YR1 cells carrying predominate ring-like structure represent high sensitivity to irradiation; (2) as an extreme radioresistant strain similar to wild-type R1, pprI completely function-complementary strain YR1001 almost displays the loose and irregular nucleoid morphologies. On the other hand, another radioresistant pprI partly function-complementary strain YR1002’s nucleiods exhibit about 60% ring-like structure; (3) a PprI C-terminal deletion strain YR1004 consisting of approximately 60% of ring-like nucleoid is very sensi-tive to radiation. Therefore, our present experiments do not support the conclusion that the ring-like nucleoid of D. radiodurans does play a key role in radioresistance.
GAO GuanJun, LU HuiMing, YIN LongFei & HUA YueJin Institute of Nuclear-Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China
PprI, a DNA damage response factor from the extraordinary radioresistant bacterium Deinococcus radi- odurans, plays a central regulatory role in multiple DNA damage repair. In this study, a fusion DNA fragment carry- ing kanamycin resistance gene with the D. radiodurans groEL promoter was cloned by PCR amplification and reversely inserted into the pprI locus in the genome of the wild-type strain R1. The resulting pprI-deficient strain, designated YR1, was very sensitive to ionizing radiation. Meanwhile, the re- combinant DNA fragment was cloned into the shuttle vector pRADZ3, and resulted in plasmid pRADK with kanamycin resistance in D. radiodurans. The fragments containing com- plete pprI gene and 3′-terminal deletion pprI△ were cloned into plasmid pRADK. The resulted plasmids designated pRADKpprI and pRADKpprI△ were then transformed to YR1. Results show that YR1 carrying pRADKpprI was able to fully restore the extreme radioresistance to the same level as the wild-type D. raiodurans R1, whereas YR1 pRADKpprI△ failed to do so. Construction of DNA repair switch PprI function-deficient and function-complementary mutants in D. radiodurans is not only useful to elucidating the relationship between domains and functions of PprI pro- tein, but also opens the door to the further studies of the bio- logical functions of PprI protein in vivo.
