Publication Abstract from PubMed
Transposition requires a coordinated series of DNA breakage and joining reactions. The Tn7 transposase contains two proteins: TnsA, which carries out DNA breakage at the 5' ends of the transposon, and TnsB, which carries out breakage and joining at the 3' ends of the transposon. TnsB is a member of the retroviral integrase superfamily whose hallmark is a conserved DDE motif. We report here the structure of TnsA at 2.4 A resolution. Surprisingly, the TnsA fold is that of a type II restriction endonuclease. Thus, Tn7 transposition involves a collaboration between polypeptides, one containing a DDE motif and one that does not. This result indicates that the range of biological processes that utilize restriction enzyme-like folds also includes DNA transposition.
Unexpected structural diversity in DNA recombination: the restriction endonuclease connection.,Hickman AB, Li Y, Mathew SV, May EW, Craig NL, Dyda F Mol Cell. 2000 Jun;5(6):1025-34. PMID:10911996[1]
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
