Repair system and mitomycin mutagenesis in Escherichia coli

Ultraviolet light sensitive mutants of E. coli defective at the uvrA, uvrB or uvrC locus showed increased sensitivity to the lethal effects of monofunctional mitomycin, 7-methoxymitosene (7-MMT) or decarbamoyl mitomycin C (DCMTC), as well as mitomycin C (MTC). (1) Treatment of wild type bacteria with these monofunctional mitomycins resulted in the production of single-strand breaks in DNA, which were repaired upon incubation in a growth medium. Such breaks in DNA were not produced in the UvrA and the UvrB mutants. In the UvrC mutant, single-strand breaks were produced by 7-MMT or by DCMTC, but these breaks were not repaired upon incubation. (2) Exposure of E. coli to MTC caused cross-linkage between DNA strands, which converted to a normally denaturable form during further incubation after treatment. This was not occurred in the UvrB strain. In the UvrC mutant, a portion of the cross-links was removed upon incubation. (3) 7-MMT and DCMTC induced mutation in UV sensitive UvrB and UvrC mutants with much higher frequency than in wild type bacteria, while MTC did not induce mutation in these Uvr-strains. (author)