General recombination, also called homologous recombination, involves two DNA molecules that have long stretches of similar base sequences. The DNA molecules are nicked to produce single strands; these subsequently invade the other duplex, where base pairing leads to a four-stranded DNA structure. The cruciform junction within this structure is called a Holliday junction, named after Robin Holliday, who proposed the original model for homologous recombination in 1964. The Holliday junction travels along the DNA duplex by “unzipping” one strand and reforming the hydrogen bonds on the second strand. Following this branch migration, the two duplexes can be nicked again, allowing them to separate. Finally, the nicks are repaired by DNA ligase. The result is two DNA duplexes in which the segment between the two nicks has been replaced. The enzymes involved in recombination have been characterized best in the prokaryote E. coli. A key enzyme is RecA, which catalyzes the strand invasion process. RecA coats single-stranded DNA and facilitates its pairing with a double-stranded DNA molecule containing the same sequence, which produces a loop structure.
Another protein, known as RecBC, is important for the recombination process. Functioning at free ends of DNA, RecBC catalyzes an unwinding-rewinding reaction as it traverses the length of the molecule. Since unwinding is faster than rewinding, a loop is produced behind the enzyme that facilitates subsequent pairing with another DNA molecule. A number of other proteins are also important for recombination, including single-stranded DNA binding proteins that stabilize single-stranded DNA, DNA polymerase to repair any gaps that might be formed, and DNA ligase to reseal the nicks after recombination is complete. The details of eukaryotic recombination are expected to parallel those found in E. coli, although the highly compact chromatin structure in eukaryotes makes the process more complicated.
It is important to note that the initial product of recombination between two regions of DNA that are similar but not identical will be a “heteroduplex”—that is, a molecule in which mismatched bases will be present at some positions in the helix. Thus, in the specialized recombination that takes place during meiosis, one round of replication is necessary before the mosaic chromosomes produced by recombination are properly matched. Enzymes are present in cells that specifically recognize and repair mismatches, so that the initial products of recombination can sometimes be repaired before they are replicated. In such cases the final products of replication will not be true reciprocal events, but rather one of the original parental molecules will appear to have been maintained to the exclusion of the other—a process called gene conversion.
Recombination also functions occasionally to repair lesions in DNA. If one chromosome of a pair becomes irreversibly damaged, the information from the other chromosome can be copied and inserted by recombination to provide a correct replacement of the damaged section. The key idea here is that sequences flanking the damage from a sister chromosome can base-pair with the corresponding sequences on the damaged chromosome, thus allowing replication to copy the correct sequence and repair the lesion.
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