Replication and recombination in adenovirus-infected cells are temporally and functionally related.

We have studied the temporal and functional relationships between DNA replication and recombination in adenovirus-infected cells by using Southern blot hybridization to detect recombinant products among intracellular viral genomes. The data show that recombination can be detected soon after DNA replication has commenced and that the proportion of recombinant products increases thereafter. To determine the functional relationship between DNA replication and recombination, replication was blocked with the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin, the replication inhibitor cytosine arabinoside, and conditionally lethal mutations in either the virus-specified DNA-binding protein or the DNA polymerase. All treatments that directly or indirectly blocked DNA replication caused a delay in the appearance of recombinant products and a marked decline in their abundance relative to products of parental genotype. These data strongly suggest that DNA replication and recombination are interrelated, either because both processes share functions or because DNA structures produced by replication are suitable substrates for recombination. In addition, we have shown that some recombination function(s) is intrinsically thermolabile at 40.9 degrees C, even in wild-type crosses, since the appearance of recombinant products is delayed and their extent is reduced compared with that from crosses performed at 39.9 degrees C.