The relative importance of<i>Escherichia coli</i>exonuclease III and endonuclease IV for the hydrolysis of 3′-phosphoglycolate ends in polydeoxynucleotides

Abstract

In vitro, in the presence of Mg++, the 3'-phosphoglycolatase activity of endonuclease IV is about 4-times smaller than that of exonuclease III for the same AP endonuclease activity. It thus seems that endonuclease IV has only a minor role in the repair of strand breaks limited by 3'-phosphoglycolate ends in Escherichia coli even after the amount of enzyme has been increased by induction with O2 -generating agents.