Insertions of palindromic DNA sequences into the J-F intercistronic region of bacteriophage phi X174 interfere with normal phage growth.

The effect of hairpin (cruciform) size on the regulation of gene expression was investigated by cloning a series of palindromic sequences into the non-essential J-F intercistronic region of the bacteriophage phi X174 ins6 genome. Genetic stability of the insert sequence and its effect on the growth efficiency of the phage was used as an initial measure of the biological consequence of hairpin insertions. Multimers of increasing size of the BamHI linker sequence C-C-G-G-A-T-C-C-G-G were inserted into the PvuII site of the parental strain ins6. The largest hairpin that could be constructed and maintained in the phi X174 genome had a stem length of 22 base-pairs and a loop size of four nucleotides (linker tetramer). However, this structure proved to be disadvantageous to the phage and was rapidly deleted from its genome. Trimer inserts were more stable, but were eventually deleted also. Monomer and dimer inserts, though genetically stable, decreased the growth efficiency of the phage as judged by competitive growth experiments and measurements of burst size. The physical formation of these hairpins was shown by restriction digests of single-stranded DNA with BamHI and HpaII. We argue that these secondary structures form in vivo, at least in the single-stranded genome and the polycistronic mRNAs, and were responsible for the observed growth defects.