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Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access published online on May 8, 2009
Nucleic Acids Research, doi:10.1093/nar/gkp326
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© 2009 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Genome Integrity, Repair, and Replication

Dynamics of RecA filaments on single-stranded DNA

Marijn T. J. van Loenhout1, Thijn van der Heijden1, Roland Kanaar2,3, Claire Wyman2,3 and Cees Dekker1,*

1Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands, 2Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, Cancer Genomics Center and 3Department of Radiation Oncology, Erasmus Medical Center, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, The Netherlands

*To whom correspondence should be addressed: Tel: +31 15 27 82 318; Fax: +31 15 27 81 202; Email: c.dekker{at}tudelft.nl

Received February 4, 2009. Revised April 6, 2009. Accepted April 20, 2009.

RecA, the key protein in homologous recombination, performs its actions as a helical filament on single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). ATP hydrolysis makes the RecA–ssDNA filament dynamic and is essential for successful recombination. RecA has been studied extensively by single-molecule techniques on double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). Here we directly probe the structure and kinetics of RecA interaction with its biologically most relevant substrate, long ssDNA molecules. We find that RecA ATPase activity is required for the formation of long continuous filaments on ssDNA. These filaments both nucleate and extend with a multimeric unit as indicated by the Hill coefficient of 5.4 for filament nucleation. Disassembly rates of RecA from ssDNA decrease with applied stretching force, corresponding to a mechanism where protein-induced stretching of the ssDNA aids in the disassembly. Finally, we show that RecA–ssDNA filaments can reversibly interconvert between an extended, ATP-bound, and a compressed, ADP-bound state. Taken together, our results demonstrate that ATP hydrolysis has a major influence on the structure and state of RecA filaments on ssDNA.


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