The ssb-113 allele suppresses the dnaQ49 mutator and alters DNA supercoiling in Escherichia coli.

Mutations in the dnaQ gene, which encodes the proofreading epsilon-subunit of the DNA polymerase III holoenzyme, lead to a mutator phenotype caused by enhanced error rates during DNA replication. In this paper, we studied the influence of ssb mutations on the dnaQ49 mutator, because of the involvement of SSB protein in DNA replication. We found that the ssb-113 mutation suppresses the mutator phenotype of dnaQ49. The suppression effect resulted from an enhanced expression of the dnaQ49 allele as determined by experiments with gene fusions. S1 nuclease analysis revealed that the increased dnaQ expression is based on transcriptional activation of the dnaQP2 promoter. This seems to be the consequence of an increased DNA supercoiling in the ssb-113 mutant, which also influenced further functions that are sensitive to alterations in DNA supercoiling. These results support the hypothesis that the expression of the epsilon-subunit of DNA polymerase III may additionally be modulated by DNA supercoiling, and suggest a possible role for DNA topology in mutagenesis.