T7 and E. coli share homology for replication-related gene products.

Recently, the complete nucleotide sequence of the bacteriophage T7 genome was determined and 50 genes were identified on the genome. We compared amino acid sequences of all the gene products of T7 and replication-related gene products of E. coli. As a result, we found that T7 and E. coli share homology for each pair of exonuclease, DNA primase and helix-destabilizing protein. For E. coli, these gene products are known to be involved in the process of discontinuous DNA replication. These observations suggest that T7 and E. coli have a common origin for a part of their replication systems.