An Excision Event That May Depend on Patchy Homology for Site Specificity

Abstract

In mouse cells transformed by a mutant polyomavirus genome, recombination between integrated viral DNA and flanking cellular DNA resulted in the excision of two readily amplifiable chimeras, designated RmI and RmII. The crossing-over that generated RmII was unique in that it involved a simple cellular sequence in which the triplet 5′-CTG-3′ was repeated many times. We show that the sequence across the junction resulting from excision was identical in several molecules of RmII, as if the cross-over generating this junction always involved exactly the same two sites on the viral and cellular DNA. We also show that the cellular site mapped where the replacement of a G by an A in one of many successive 5′-CTG-3′ triplets generated a homology of five nucleotides (5′-CTACT-3′) with the viral site. Oligonucleotides on both sides of these sites are probably involved in matching the two DNAs prior to recombination.