DciA is an ancestral replicative helicase operator essential for bacterial replication initiation.
Delivery of the replicative helicase onto DNA is an essential step in the initiation of replication. In bacteria, DnaC (in Escherichia coli) and DnaI (in Bacillus subtilis) are representative of the two known mechanisms that assist the replicative helicase at this stage. Here, we establish that these two strategies cannot be regarded as prototypical of the bacterial domain since dnaC and dnaI (dna[CI]) are present in only a few bacterial phyla. We show that dna[CI] was domesticated at least seven times through evolution in bacteria and at the expense of one gene, which we rename dciA (dna[CI] antecedent), suggesting that DciA and Dna[CI] share a common function. We validate this hypothesis by establishing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that DciA possesses the attributes of the replicative helicase-operating proteins associated with replication initiation.
Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin, 45 Avenue des Etats-Unis, Versailles 78000, France.
Pierre
P
Brézellec
Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91198, France.
Isabelle
I
Vallet-Gely
Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91198, France.
Christophe
C
Possoz
Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91198, France.
Sophie
S
Quevillon-Cheruel
Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin, 45 Avenue des Etats-Unis, Versailles 78000, France.|Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91198, France.
Jean-Luc
JL
Ferat
D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004265:DNA Helicases / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004261:DNA Replication; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D016680:Genome, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D009875:Operator Regions, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; C071702:DnaC protein, E coli; C448302:DnaI protein, Bacillus subtilis; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D004265:DNA Helicases