Escherichia coli dnaB mutant defective in DNA initiation: isolation and properties of the dnaB protein.

Extracts of the DNA initiation-defective mutant Escherichia coli dnaB252 are inactive in a dnaB complementation assay but yield a ribonucleoside triphosphatase activity of native molecular weight of about 270,000 (60,000-dalton polypeptide as subunit) that can be inactivated by antibody to dnaB. On the other hand, extracts of a dnaB252(P1 bac) lysogen, in which the dnaB mutation is suppressed in vivo by the constitutive expression of the P1 dnaB analog (ban protein), are active in dnaB complementation and the activity is also sensitive to dnaB antibody. Upon further purification two proteins (with polypeptide molecular weights of 60,000 and 56,000, respectively) are found associated with each other (native molecular weight about 270,000). The larger and the smaller protein are tentatively identified as the dnaB and P1 ban protein. It is suggested that suppression of the dnaB mutation by prophage P1 bac is accomplished by a stabilization of dnaB252 by P1 ban subunit molecules in a heteromultimer.