Disease relevance of nei

• The gene nei is located at 16 min on the E. coli chromosome and encodes a 263-amino-acid protein which shows significant homology in the N-terminal and C-terminal regions to five bacterial Fpg proteins [1].

High impact information on nei

• Mutants of Escherichia coli and mice (ref. 4 and M. Takao et al., personal communication) that are deficient in DNA glycosylases that remove oxidized bases are not sensitive to reactive oxygen species, and the E. coli triple mutant nei, nth, fpg is more radioresistant than the wild-type strain [2].
• The present work extends the substrate specificity of Nei and shows the effect of a single mutation in the nei gene on the specificity of Nei [3].
• Endonuclease VIII has now been purified to apparent homogeneity, and the gene, nei, has been cloned by using reverse genetics [1].
• In contrast to nth mutants, which showed a weak mutator phenotype, nei single mutants behaved as the wild type [1].

Biological context of nei

• The introduction of a plasmid carrying the nth, nei, or mutM gene into the E. coli triple mutant restored the formation of the corresponding protein-DNA complex [4].
• The high spontaneous mutation frequency previously observed in fpg mutY double mutants was significantly enhanced by the addition of the nei mutation, suggesting an overlap in the substrate specificities between endo VIII and Fpg/MutY [5].
• This operon has two confirmed transcription initiation sites upstream of the first open reading frame and two transcript termination sites downstream of nei. nth is the terminal gene in an operon with seven open reading frames that encode proteins of unknown function [6].
• The genes encoding these proteins, nei and nth, are both co-transcribed as the terminal genes in operons. nei is the terminal gene in an operon with four open reading frames that encode proteins of unknown function [6].

References