Characterization of the defects in bacteriophage T7 DNA synthesis during growth in the Escherichia coli mutant tsnB.

The Escherichia coli mutant tsnB (M. Chamberlin, J. Virol. 14:509-516, 1974) is unable to support the growth of bacteriophage T7, although all classes of phage proteins are produced and the host is killed by the infection. During growth in this mutant host, the rate of phage DNA synthesis is reduced and the DNA is not packaged into stable, phagelike particles. The replicating DNA forms concatemers but the very large replicative intermediates (approximately 440S) identified by Paetkau et al. (J. Virol. 22:130-141, 1977) are not detected in T7+-infected tsnB cells. These large structures are formed in tsnB cells infected with a T7 gene 3 (endonuclease) mutant, where normal processing of the large intermediates into shorter concatemers is blocked. At later times during infection of tsnB cells, the replicating DNA accumulates in molecules about 30% shorter than unit length. Analysis of this DNA with a restriction endonuclease indicates that it is missing sequences from the ends (particularly the left end) of the genome. The loss of these specific sequences does not occur during infections with T7 gene 10 (head protein) or gene 19 (maturation protein) mutants. This suggests that the processing of concatemers into unit-length DNA molecules may occur normally in T7 -infected tsnB cells and that the shortened DNA arises from exonucleolytic degradation of the mature DNA molecules. These results are discussed in relation to our recent observation (M. A. DeWyngaert and D. C. Hinkle, J. Biol. Chem. 254:11247-11253, 1979) that E. coli tsnB produces an altered RNA polymerase which is resistance to inhibition by the T7 gene 2 protein.