The primary paper (Baker, T. A., Mizuuchi, M., Savilahti, H., and Mizuuchi, K. (1993). "Division of Labor among Monomers within the Mu Transposase Tetramer." Cell 74, 723-733), to be discussed 2/9/96, presents experiments and a model for the roles of the four monomers in a tetramer. We are interested in the evidence for the requirement that each monomer be involved, the chemistry of the different steps, and the bio-relevance of the transposase tetramer.

Background Area (paper)                                                             Who       
Previous work on assembly (Baker and Mizuuchi, 1992)                                          
Chemistry of DNA cleavage and ligation in HIV integrase (Engelman et al., 1991)               
Tetramerization as a control point (Mizuuchi et al., 1992)                                    
Later work on how monomers are brought in to the complex (Mizuuchi et al., 1995)              
Later work concerning possible inter-subunit contacts (Rice and Mizuuchi, 1995)               
Evidence for tetramerization (Lavoie et al., 1991)                                            
Domain sharing model (Yang et al., 1995)                                                      
Later work on individual monomer roles (Baker et al., 1994)                                   
Relationship to other transposases (Grindley and Laschnizer, 1995)                            
Extra-close reading                                                                           

Baker, T. A. and Mizuuchi, K. (1992). "DNA-promoted assembly of the active tetramer of the Mu transposase." Genes Dev. 6, 2221-2232.

Engelman, A., Mizuuchi, K., and Craigie, R. (1991). "HIV-1 DNA Integration: Mechanism of Viral DNA Cleavage and DNA Strand Transfer." Cell 67, 1211-1221.

Grindley, N. D. F. and Laschziner, A. E. (1995). "DNA Transposition: From a Black Box to a Color Monitor." Cell 83, 1063-1066.

Lavoie, B. D., Chan, B. S., Allison, R. G., and Chaconas, G. (1991). "Structural aspects of a higher order nucleoprotein complex: induction of an altered DNA structure at the Mu-host junction of the Mu Type 1 transposasome." EMBO J. 10, 3051-3059.

Mizuuchi, M., Baker, T. A., and Mizuuchi, K. (1992). "Assembly of the Active Form of the Transposase-Mu DNA Complex: A Critical Control Point in Mu Transposition." Cell 70, 303-311.

Mizuuchi, M., Baker, T. A., and Mizuuchi, K. (1995). "Assembly of Phage Mu Transposasomes: Cooperative Transitions Assisted by Protein and DNA Scaffolds." Cell 83, 375-385.

Rice, P. and Mizuuchi, K. (1995). "Structure of the Bacteriophage Mu Transposase Core: A Common Structural Motif for DNA Transposition and Retroviral Integration." Cell 82, 209-220.

Yang, J.-Y., Kim, K., Jayaram, M., and Harshey, R. M. (1995). "A domain sharing model for active site assembly within the Mu A tetramer during transposition: the enhancer may specify domain contributions." EMBO J. 14, 2374-2384.