Requirement of a Functional Gene 32 Product of Bacteriophage T4 in UV Repair

A temperature-sensitive mutation in gene 32 was used to study the role of gene 32 protein in the repair of UV-damaged DNA of bacteriophage T4. It was possible to distinguish between repair and replication of DNA at 33 C. At this temperature, DNA replication continued, and the intracellular DNA was stable. In contrast, no significant repair of UV-damaged DNA was observed even 40 min after the irradiation. Therefore, it was concluded that the defect in the repair mechanism at this temperature is not a simple consequence of the defect in DNA replication but that gene 32 apparently has an independent role for DNA repair. It was reported previously that gene 32 product is required for both T4 DNA replication and genetic recombination. In addition to these findings, this study has given direct evidence that, in vivo, this protein is also essential for the UV repair mechanism.