Replacement of the deoxycytidine residues in Rhizobium bacteriophage RL38JI DNA.

Rhizobium phage RL38JI DNA is resistant to cleavage by a variety of restriction endonucleases, and is only partially sensitive to digestion by pancreatic DNase I or by micrococcal nuclease. We have found that a mixture of DNase I, P1 nuclease, and bacterial alkaline phosphatase will quantitatively digest RL38JI DNA to deoxyribonucleosides. HPLC analysis revealed that dCyd is nearly totally absent among these digestion products, while dGuo, dAdo, and Thd are readily detected. Three additional peaks are always present; their retention properties correspond to no known modified deoxyribonucleosides. Thus it appears that dCyd is replaced in phage RL38JI DNA by as many as 3 different modified residues.