The proteins responsible for the initiation of DNA replication are thought to be essentially unrelated in bacteria and archaea͞ eukaryotes. Here we show that RepA, the initiator from the Pseudomonas plasmid pPS10, and the C-terminal domain of ScOrc4p, a subunit of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sc) origin recognition complex (ORC), share sequence similarities. Based on biochemical and spectroscopic evidence, these similarities include common structural elements, such as a winged-helix domain and a leucine-zipper dimerization motif. We have also found that ScOrc4p, as previously described for RepA-type initiators, interacts with chaperones of the Hsp70 family both in vitro and in vivo, most probably to regulate the assembly of active ORC. In evolutionary terms, our results are compatible with the recruitment of the same protein module for initiation of DNA replication by the ancestors of present-day Gram-negative bacteria plasmids, archaea, and eukaryotes.T he universality of the processes involved in the transmission of genetic information has been interpreted to reflect a common evolutionary history. Thus it is accepted that life originated from self-replicating RNA molecules capable of directing protein synthesis, to be replaced later by DNA as the genetic material (1). However, this view has been challenged by modern genomics, inasmuch as protein sequence comparisons conclude that the set of genes for replication, transcription, and translation in bacteria differs from that found in archaea and eukarya (2). Divergence is noteworthy for proteins that initiate chromosomal DNA replication in bacteria (DnaA) (3) and eukarya (the six subunits of the origin recognition complex, ORC) (4, 5); despite their common function in binding to DNA replicators, they lack significant sequence similarity, other than an AATϩ module for ATP binding (6-8). However, structural similarities have been found among some of the accessory factors of prokaryotic and eukaryotic replicative DNA polymerases (9-11).We had previously found in RepA, the Pseudomonas plasmid pPS10 DNA replication initiator protein (12), the leucine-zipper (LZ) (13, 14) and helix-turn-helix (15) sequence motifs that function in protein dimerization and protein-DNA interaction, respectively. These motifs are part of two repeated winged-helix (WH) domains (16). In common with other homologous plasmid initiators (17, 18), RepA molecules exist as monomers and dimers in equilibrium (14). The monomers activate initiation of replication by binding to directly repeated DNA sequences (14, 16), whereas the dimers repress repA transcription by binding to an inversely repeated DNA operator (19,16). Dissociation of RepA dimers can either occur spontaneously (14,20) or be mediated by DnaK͞Hsp70 chaperones (21). Monomerization is coupled to a conformational change (22,23) in the N-terminal domain in RepA. As a result both the N-and C-terminal domains of the monomer show DNA binding, whereas in the dimer only the C-terminal domain is involved in DNA binding (16). This model was recent...