DciA is an ancestral replicative helicase operator essential for bacterial replication initiation

Delivery of the replicative helicase onto DNA is an essential step in the initiation of replication. In bacteria, DnaC (in Escherichia coli ) and DnaI (in Bacillus subtilis ) are representative of the two known mechanisms that assist the replicative helicase at this stage. Here, we establish that th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2016-11, Vol.7 (1), p.13271-13271, Article 13271
Main Authors: Brézellec, Pierre, Vallet-Gely, Isabelle, Possoz, Christophe, Quevillon-Cheruel, Sophie, Ferat, Jean-Luc
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
13/31
14/63
631/181/757
631/208/182
631/337/151/1431
Bacteria
Domestication
E coli
Evolution
Genes
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hypotheses
Life Sciences
multidisciplinary
Proteins
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:Delivery of the replicative helicase onto DNA is an essential step in the initiation of replication. In bacteria, DnaC (in Escherichia coli ) and DnaI (in Bacillus subtilis ) are representative of the two known mechanisms that assist the replicative helicase at this stage. Here, we establish that these two strategies cannot be regarded as prototypical of the bacterial domain since dnaC and dnaI ( dna[CI] ) are present in only a few bacterial phyla. We show that dna[CI] was domesticated at least seven times through evolution in bacteria and at the expense of one gene, which we rename dciA ( dna[CI] antecedent), suggesting that DciA and Dna[CI] share a common function. We validate this hypothesis by establishing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that DciA possesses the attributes of the replicative helicase-operating proteins associated with replication initiation. DNA replication requires the loading of the replicative helicase onto the DNA molecule; in bacteria this was believed to be solely accomplished by DnaC and DnaI. Here the authors identify DciA as an ancestral and still widely distributed replicative helicase loader.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms13271