LexA repressor of Escherichia coli is inactivated in vivo by a specific cleavage reaction requiring activated RecA protein. In vitro, cleavage requires activated RecA at neutral pH and proceeds spontaneously at alkaline pH. These two cleavage reactions have similar specificities, suggesting that RecA acts indirectly to stimulate self-cleavage, rather than directly as a protease. We have studied the chemical mechanism of cleavage by using site-directed mutagenesis to change selected amino acid residues in LexA, chosen on the basis of kinetic data, homology to other cleavable repressors, and potential similarity of the mechanism to that of proteases. Serine-119 and lysine-156 were changed to alanine, a residue with an unreactive side chain, resulting in two mutant proteins that had normal repressor function and apparently normal structure, but were completely deficient in both types of cleavage reaction. Serine-119 was also changed to cysteine, another residue with a nucleophilic side chain, resulting in a protein that was cleaved at a significant rate. These and other observations suggest that hydrolysis of the scissile peptide bond proceeds by a mechanism similar to that of serine proteases, with serine-119 being a nucleophile and lysine-156 being an activator. Possible roles for RecA are discussed.Escherichia coli LexA and X cI repressors are inactivated in vivo by a specific cleavage reaction that cuts a conserved Ala-Gly bond near the center of the polypeptide chain (1, 2). Cleavage occurs following treatments that damage DNA or inhibit replication (1-3). Inactivation of LexA is rapid and results in derepression of a set of genes, the SOS regulon, largely responsible for DNA repair. Cleavage of the X repressor is much slower than that of LexA, and more severe treatments are required to induce the prophage. Repressor cleavage in vivo requires RecA function; RecA protein is quiescent during normal cell growth but is activated by the inducing treatment to a form that participates in cleavage.Early in vitro studies showed that the role of RecA protein in cleavage is relatively direct (4). At physiological pH, cleavage is dependent on the presence of RecA protein and two cofactors-a nucleoside triphosphate and single-stranded DNA-that activate RecA by forming a ternary complex. For a time, it was tacitly assumed that activated RecA was a conventional protease with a highly specific active site. This view was challenged by the finding (5) that, under different conditions, cleavage of LexA and the X repressor proceeds spontaneously at the same Ala-Gly bond in an intramolecular reaction, termed "autodigestion," that is stimulated by alkaline pH and does not require RecA. Both RecA-dependent cleavage and autodigestion of LexA are inhibited in a mutant protein, LexA3, that also cannot be cleaved in vivo.It was, therefore, proposed that RecA protein is not itself a protease, but rather that it acts indirectly by stimulating the autodigestion reaction. According to this hypothesis, activated RecA is a positive ef...