Goodman S D, Nash H A
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.
Nature. 1989 Sep 21;341(6239):251-4. doi: 10.1038/341251a0.
In recent years the capacity of proteins to bend DNA by binding to specific sites has become a widely appreciated phenomenon. In many cases, the protein-DNA interaction is known to be functionally significant because destruction of the DNA site or the protein itself results in an altered phenotype. An important question to be answered in these cases is whether bending of DNA is important per se or is merely a consequence of the way a particular protein binds to DNA. Here we report direct evidence from the bacteriophage lambda integration system that a bend introduced by a protein is intrinsically important. We find that a binding site for a specific recombination protein known to bend DNA can be successfully replaced by two other modules that also bend DNA; related modules that fail to bend DNA are ineffective.
近年来，蛋白质通过结合特定位点使DNA弯曲的能力已成为一种广为人知的现象。在许多情况下，蛋白质与DNA的相互作用在功能上具有重要意义，因为DNA位点或蛋白质本身的破坏会导致表型改变。在这些情况下需要回答的一个重要问题是，DNA弯曲本身是否重要，还是仅仅是特定蛋白质与DNA结合方式的结果。在这里，我们报告了来自噬菌体λ整合系统的直接证据，即由蛋白质引入的弯曲本质上是重要的。我们发现，一个已知能使DNA弯曲的特定重组蛋白的结合位点可以被另外两个也能使DNA弯曲的模块成功取代；而不能使DNA弯曲的相关模块则无效。
