Roles of topoisomerases in maintaining steady-state DNA supercoiling in Escherichia coli

DNA supercoiling is essential for bacterial cell survival. We demonstrated that DNA topoisomerase IV, acting in concert with topoisomerase I and gyrase, makes an important contribution to the steady-state level of supercoiling in Escherichia coli. Following inhibition of gyrase, topoisomerase IV alone relaxed plasmid DNA to a final supercoiling density (σ) of -0.015 at an initial rate of 0.8 links min^-1. Topoisomerase I relaxed DNA at a faster rate, 5 links min^-1, but only to a σ of -0.05. Inhibition of topoisomerase IV in wild-type cells increased supercoiling to approximately the same level as in a mutant lacking topoisomerase I activity (to σ = -0.08). The role of topoisomerase IV was revealed by two functional assays. Removal of both topoisomerase I and topoisomerase IV caused the DNA to become hyper-negatively supercoiled (σ = -0.09), greatly stimulating transcription from the supercoiling sensitive leu-500 promoter and increasing the number of supercoils trapped by λ integrase site-specific recombination.