Our address

CNRS - Centre de Génétique Moléculaire - UPR 2167

Avenue de la Terrasse - Bât. 26

91198 GIF-SUR-YVETTE Cedex

FRANCE

Phone : 33 (0)1 69 82 32 29

Telecopy : 33 (0)1 69 82 31 60

The group

Carine Chagneau, Technician

Giuseppe Lia, Postdoctoral fellow

Émilie Long, Engineer

Bénédicte Michel, PhD, Research Director, CNRS

Research interests

Our laboratory uses Escherichia coli as a model system to study the links between DNA replication and recombination. In our search for structural and functional elements of genomes which induce DNA rearrangements, we showed that sequences where replication is impaired or arrested are preferential sites of illegitimate and homologous recombination.

The important role of replication arrest site in genome stability prompted us to study the fate of inactivated replication forks. We have shown that they are susceptible to DNA breakage and preferential sites of action of recombination proteins. In several conditions of replication impairment, we observed at blocked forks a specific reaction that we called “replication fork reversal”.

After characterization of the conditions of replication fork inactivation in which replication fork reversal occurs, we analyze at present the mechanism of the reaction.

These studies reveal the action of several recombination and DNA repair proteins at replication forks

Recent publications

Lia, G., Michel, B., Allemand, JF. (2011) Polymerase Exchange During Okazaki Fragment Synthesis Observed in Living Cells. Science, 335 56066) 328-31.

Bradley, AS., Baharoglu, Z., Niewiarowski, A., Michel, B., Tsaneva, IR. (2011) Formation of a stable RuvA double tetramer is required for efficient branch migration in vitro and for replication fork reversal in vivo. J Biol Chem, 286 (25) 22372-83.

Baharoglu, Z., Lestini, R., Duigou, S., Michel, B. (2010) RNA polymerase mutations that facilitate replication progression in the rep uvrD recF mutant lacking two accessory replicative helicases. Mol Microbiol, 77 (2) 324-36.

Boubakri, H., de Septenville, A.-L., Viguera, E. and Michel, B. (2010) The helicases DinG, Rep and UvrD cooperate to promote replication across transcription units in vivo. EMBO J, 29 (1) 145-57. Erratum in: EMBO J. 2010, 29 (1) 278.

Le Masson, M., Baharoglu, Z. and Michel, B. (2008) ruvA and ruvB mutants specifically impaired for replication fork reversal. Mol Microbiol, 70 (2) 537-48.

Lestini, R. and Michel, B. (2008) UvrD and UvrD252 counteract RecQ, RecJ and RecFOR in the rep mutant. J Bacteriol, 190 (17) 5995-6001.

Baharoglu, Z., Bradley, A.-S., Le Masson, M., Tsaneva, I. and Michel, B. (2008) ruvA Mutants That Resolve Holliday Junctions but Do Not Reverse Replication Forks. PLoS Genet, 4 (3) e1000012.

Lestini, R. and Michel, B. (2007) UvrD controls the access of recombination proteins to blocked replication forks. EMBO J, 26 (16) 3804-14.

Michel, B., Boubakri, H., Baharoglu, Z., Lemasson, M. and Lestini, R. (2007) Recombination proteins and rescue of arrested replication forks. DNA Repair (Amst). 6 (7) 967-80, Review.

Bidnenko, V., Lestini, R. and Michel, B. (2006) The Escherichia coli UvrD helicase is essential for Tus removal during recombination-dependent replication restart from Ter sites. Mol Microbiol, 62 (2) 382-96.

Baharoglu Z., Petranovic M., Flores M.J. and Michel, B. (2006) RuvAB is essential for replication forks reversal in certain replication mutants. EMBO J. 25 (3) 596-604.

Rocha E.P., Cornet E. and B. Michel (2005) Comparative and evolutionary analysis of the bacterial homologous recombination systems. Plos Genetics 1, 247-259.

Flores M.J., Sanchez, N. and Michel, B. (2005) A fork-clearing role for UvrD. Mol Microbiol. 57, 1664-1675.

Flores M.J., Bidnenko V. and Michel, B. (2004) The DNA repair helicase UvrD is essential for replication fork reversal in polymerase mutants. EMBO Reports 5, 983-988

Grompone G., Ehrlich S.D. and Michel, B. (2004) Cells defective for replication restart undergo replication fork reversal. EMBO Reports, 5 : 607-612.

Michel , B., Grompone, G., Flores, M.J. and V. Bidnenko (2004) Multiple pathways process stalled replication forks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 35 : 12783-12788.