The single cell data set of "Spatiotemporal Characterization of Single-Stranded DNA Intermediates after UV Irradiation: II. Effects of recA and recJ"

This dataset provides time-resolved, single-cell measurements of postreplication gap formation and repair in Escherichia coli after UV irradiation at 5 J/m². Cells were grown in custom microfluidic devices and imaged over an 8-hour period using two excitation wavelengths: 568 nm to visualize fluorescently labeled cells and 458 nm to detect fluorescent SSB gap-marker signals. The associated CSV files quantify gap numbers, SSB-marker intensities, cell dimensions, and time-dependent responses across thousands of individual cells. In repair-proficient strains, UV exposure triggers an immediate rise in SSB-associated fluorescence, followed by a rapid decline in marker intensity between 10–45 minutes as gaps are repaired; gap counts decrease more gradually over roughly three hours. Mutants lacking recF, recO, or recA display persistently elevated gap numbers and high-intensity SSB signals, reflecting defects in the canonical gap-repair pathway. The dataset shows that these long-lived, high-intensity foci depend on RecJ, whose nuclease activity continues to enlarge gaps when RecFOR functions are absent. Cells deficient in RecA or RecFOR factors accumulate repair intermediates bound by large amounts of SSB, whereas RecJ-null strains exhibit evidence of alternative processing pathways, potentially involving translesion synthesis. The data also capture the continuation of UV-related repair activities over multiple cell generations and show no indication that RecF promotes lesion skipping. The dataset is suitable for quantitative analysis of DNA gap formation, gap-repair kinetics, and SSB-binding behavior at single-cell resolution.