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Nucleic Acids Research, 1994, Vol. 22, No. 9 1626-1631
© 1994

METHODS

An activity gel assay for the detection of DNA helicases and nucleases from cell-free extracts

Sanjay K. Shukla and David McCarthy*

Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 73019-0245, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed

Received January 31, 1994. Revised April 3, 1994. Accepted April 3, 1994.

An activity gel assay was developed for the detection of DNA helicases in crude extracts. The assay was based on the ability of DNA helicases to unwind radioactive fragments from single-stranded M13 circles that were immobilized in an SDS polyacrylamide gel. The displaced radioactive strands were detected by blotting them to a filter and visualizing the resulting bands by autoradiography. Experiments with purified proteins demonstrated that DNA helicases, endo-nucleases and exonucleases could produce activity bands. A one-dimensional gel assay was sufficiently sensitive to allow detection of DNA helicase I, DNA helicase II, DNA helicase IV, the RecQ helicase as well as 3 unidentified putative DNA helicases in crude extracts of Escherichia coli. Exonuclease and endo-nuclease activities from crude extracts could be distinguished from DNA helicase activities by their ATP-independence and from each other by their band morphologies.


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