Transcriptional activation of pBR322 DNA can lead to duplex DNA unwinding catalyzed by the Escherichia coli preprimosome.

Mechanisms that could operate to initiate pBR322 DNA replication in the absence of RNase H and DNA polymerase I are described. Two different pathways leading to extensive unwinding of pBR322 DNA have been observed under DNA replication reaction conditions in vitro. In the presence of RNA polymerase and DNA gyrase, specifically initiated RNA II (the leading-strand primer precursor) can form an RNA-DNA hybrid with the template that starts just upstream of the origin of DNA replication and continues for about 3 kilobases. Subsequent digestion of the RNA in this RNA-pBR322 DNA hybrid results in the formation of a highly unwound DNA termed form I. If DNA gyrase is absent during the RNA polymerase-catalyzed elongation of RNA II, a stable RNA-pBR322 DNA hybrid can still form that is localized to the origin region of the genome. Formation of this hybrid activates the primosome assembly site present on the lagging-strand DNA template, by displacing it to a single-stranded conformation, thereby allowing preprimosome assembly. Once assembled, the DNA helicase activity of the preprimosome, in the presence of the single-stranded DNA binding protein and DNA gyrase but in the absence of any further transcription, can also result in extensive unwinding of pBR322 DNA. The product of this reaction, form I DNA, is more unwound than form I DNA. The formation of both form I and form I DNA is inhibited by the presence of excess RNA I, as well as by RNase H at concentrations sufficient to catalyze the normal processing of RNA II required for initiation of leading-strand DNA synthesis. These results suggest that RNA II-pBR322 DNA hybrid formation is essential to permit preprimosome assembly during pBR322 DNA replication under conditions where both RNase H and DNA polymerase I are absent.