Single stranded DNA translocation of E. coli UvrD monomer is tightly coupled to ATP hydrolysis

Abstract

E. coli UvrD is an SF1A helicase/translocase that functions in several DNA repair pathways. A UvrD monomer is a rapid and processive single-stranded (ss) DNA translocase, but is unable to unwind DNA processively in vitro. Based on data at saturating ATP (500 μM) we proposed a non-uniform stepping mechanism in which a UvrD monomer translocates with biased (3′ to 5′) directionality while hydrolyzing 1 ATP per DNA base translocated, but with a kinetic step-size of 4–5 nucleotides/step, suggesting a pause occurs every 4–5 nucleotides translocated. To further test this mechanism we examined UvrD translocation over a range of lower ATP concentrations (10–500 μM ATP), using transient kinetic approaches. We find a constant ATP coupling stoichiometry of ~1 ATP/DNA base translocated even at the lowest ATP concentration examined (10 μM) indicating that ATP hydrolysis is tightly coupled to forward translocation of a UvrD monomer along ssDNA with little slippage or futile ATP hydrolysis during translocation. The translocation kinetic step size remains constant at 4–5 nucleotides/step down to 50 μM ATP, but increases to ~7 nucleotides/step at 10 μM ATP. These results suggest that UvrD pauses more frequently during translocation at low ATP, but with little futile ATP hydrolysis.