Rag-1: a topoisomerase?

Recombination activating genes Rag-1 and Rag-2 were isolated on the basis of their ability to confer V(D)J recombination activity when co-expressed in fibroblasts. The mode of action of the confer V(D)J recombination activity when co-expressed in fibroblasts. The mode of action of the products of these genes is not known. Based on sequence comparison data, it was suggested that Rag-1 protein could act like a topoisomerase and that tyrosine in position 998 could be the active site tyrosine. We tested this hypothesis by introducing a point mutation on the Rag-1 cDNA, transforming the tyrosine codon into a phenylalanine codon. We show that the mutation has no effect on site specific recombination implying that Tyr-998 is not essential for the recombination reaction.