Early metabolic events in Escherichia coli exposed to nalidixic acid, a topoisomerase II inhibitor and an inducer of the SOS system, were investigated by in vivo NMR spectroscopy, a technique that permits monitoring of bacteria under controlled physiological conditions. The energetics of AB1157 (wild type) and of its isogenic, SOS-defective mutants, recBC, lexA, and ⌬recA, were studied by 31 P and 19 F NMR before, during, and after exposure to nalidixic acid. The content of the NTP in E. coli embedded in agarose beads and perfused at 36°C was found to be 4.3 ؎ 1.1 ؋ 10 ؊18 mol/cell, yielding a concentration of ϳ2.7 ؎ 0.7 mM. Nalidixic acid induced in the wild type and mutants a rapid 2-fold increase in the content of the NTP, predominantly ATP. This induction did not involve synthesis of uracil derivatives or breakdown of RNA and caused cell proliferation to stop. Removal of nalidixic acid after 40 min of treatment rescued the cells and resulted in a decrease of ATP to control levels and resumption of proliferation. However, in ⌬recA cells, which were more sensitive to the activity of the drug, ATP elevation could not be reversed, and ATP content continued to increase faster than in control cells. The results ruled out association between the elevation of ATP and the induction of the SOS system and suggested involvement of a process reminiscent of apoptosis in the stimulation of ATP synthesis. Thus, the presence of the RecA protein was found to be essential for reversing the ATP increase and cell rescue, possibly by its function in repair of DNA damage.Several antitumor and antibacterial drugs were shown to induce a rapid elevation in the total pool of the NTPs in prokaryotes and eukaryotes (1-7). In Escherichia coli, bleomycin and UV radiation, which are also bacterial SOS activators, were shown to induce a rapid, transient, and 2-fold increase in ATP concentration (1, 2). The pronounced elevation of ATP was shown to be independent of oxidative phosphorylation and was therefore attributed to an unknown intracellular phosphorylation pathway (1). In addition, with UV a delayed and substantially smaller increase in ATP was found to occur in the recBC mutant (1), whereas a complete inhibition of this increase occurred in a recBC mutant treated with bleomycin (2). In wild type, Within ϳ30 min of induction of ATP, the bacteria entered a recovery phase, and ATP rapidly declined to baseline levels (1-3). However, in the mutants with impaired SOS activity, such as recA13 (defective RecA protein), recA430 (deficient RecA protease activity), and lexA1 (cleavage resistant LexA repressor), recovery was impeded, and ATP levels remained elevated (1-3). These results indicated involvement of the SOS pathway in the return to normal NTP levels, i.e. the recovery phase (3).The rapid increase in ATP after damage to DNA is not unique to prokaryotic cells and also occurs in mammalian cancer cells in response to chemotherapy (4 -7). For example, in T47D clone 11 human breast cancer cells, adriamycin induced a fast transient increase ...