Genetic control of the UV-induced SOS mutator effect in single- and double-stranded DNA phages.

The SOS hypothesis postulated that the mutator effect on undamaged DNA that generates phage-untargeted mutagenesis (UTM) results directly from the mechanism of targeted mutagenesis. RecA protein, which stimulates the cleavage of both the LexA repressor and UmuD protein, and the UmuDC gene products are required for UV-induced targeted mutagenesis. The use of phage lambda for analyzing UV-induced mutagenesis has permitted a distinction to be made between the mechanisms of targeted and untargeted mutagenesis, in that the two processes differ with respect to their genetic requirements for recA+ and umuDC+ genes. In this paper, we show that (i) proficiency for excision repair is required for UTM in double-stranded DNA phage but not in single-stranded DNA phage; (ii) the umuC function, which is not required for UTM of the double-stranded DNA phage lambda, is necessary for untargeted mutagenesis of the single-stranded DNA phages M13 and phi X174; (iii) for both single-stranded and double-stranded DNA phage, UV irradiation of the host increases the level of recA730-induced UTM. Our results are also consistent with the interpretation that the expression of untargeted mutagenesis in phage lambda and in M13 depends on the polymerase and to a lesser extent on the exonuclease 5'----3', activities of PolI. These results suggest that the involvement of the RecA and UmuDC proteins may be related to more than the presence of base damage in the DNA substrate.