W. Jeong et Cw. Kang, THE HISTIDINE-805 IN MOTIF-C OF THE PHAGE SP6 RNA-POLYMERASE IS ESSENTIAL FOR ITS ACTIVITY AS REVEALED BY RANDOM MUTAGENESIS, Biochemistry and molecular biology international, 42(4), 1997, pp. 711-716
In order to identify functional residues of the bacteriophage SP6 RNA
polymerase, its C-terminal one-twelfth region was randomly mutagenized
using polymerase chain reactions of its gene under the conditions for
reduced fidelity of Taq DNA polymerase. Using a two-vector system tha
t permits phenotypic isolation of mutants with reduced in vivo transcr
iption activity, 3 single and 1 multiple mutants were isolated. A sing
le substitution of Gln for His805 resulted in complete inactivation of
the enzyme. A multiple mutant carrying substitutions at 808, 820, 835
, 843 and 848 also abolished the activity. However, changes of Pro856-
->Ser and Asp862-->Glu individually reduced the activity only slightly
. It is noteworthy that His805 is one of the two motif-C residues that
are absolutely conserved among all the DNA polymerases and monomeric
RNA polymerases.