Mismatch repair in heteroduplex DNA.

DNA with base pair mismatches was prepared by annealing mixtures of genetically marked DNA from bacteriophage lambda. This heteroduplex DNA was used to transfect bacteria under conditions minimizing recombination. Genetic analysis of the progeny phages indicates that: (i) Mismatch repair occurs, usually giving rise to a DNA molecule with one chain with the genotype arising from repair and one parental chain. (ii) The frequency of repair of a given mismatch to wild type depends on the marker, ranging from 3 to 20%. (iii) Excision tracts may extend several hundred nucleotides but are usually shorter than about 2000 nucleotides. (iv) In Rec-mediated bacteriophage crosses, recombination of markers closer than about 10-3 nucleotide pairs frequently occurs by mismatch repair within heteroduplex DNA. (V) The average amount of heteroduplex DNA formed in a Rec-mediated recombination event is a few thousand nucleotide pairs.