Story R M, Bishop D K, Kleckner N, Steitz T A
Department of Molecular Biophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511.
Science. 1993 Mar 26;259(5103):1892-6. doi: 10.1126/science.8456313.
RecA protein is essential in eubacteria for homologous recombination and promotes the homologous pairing and strand exchange of DNA molecules in vitro. Recombination proteins with weak sequence similarity to bacterial RecA proteins have been identified in bacteriophage T4, yeast, and other higher organisms. Analysis of the primary sequence relationships of DMC1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and UvsX of T4 relative to the three-dimensional structure of RecA from Escherichia coli suggests that both proteins are structural homologs of bacterial RecA proteins. This analysis argues that proteins in this group are members of a single family that diverged from a common ancestor that existed prior to the divergence of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
RecA蛋白在真细菌中对于同源重组至关重要，并且在体外促进DNA分子的同源配对和链交换。在噬菌体T4、酵母及其他高等生物中已鉴定出与细菌RecA蛋白具有弱序列相似性的重组蛋白。对酿酒酵母的DMC1和T4的UvsX相对于大肠杆菌RecA三维结构的一级序列关系分析表明，这两种蛋白都是细菌RecA蛋白的结构同源物。该分析表明，这一组蛋白是一个单一家族的成员，该家族起源于原核生物和真核生物分化之前存在的一个共同祖先。
