Enthalpies and heat capacities were determined by isothermal titration calorimetry for bacteriophage lambda cI repressor binding to DNA containing various combinations of the three operator sites OR1, OR2, and OR3 (each comprising a consensus half-site and a specific nonconsensus half-site). Differential scanning calorimetry was employed to evaluate the effects of specific DNA binding on thermal melting of the N-terminal and C-terminal repressor domains. Principal findings of this study are as follows: (1) Binding of repressor to each of the DNA operators is dominated by a large negative enthalpy, in agreement with earlier van't Hoff analyses of quantitative footprint titration data [Koblan & Ackers (1992) Biochemistry 31, 57-65]. The calorimetric data also revealed negative heat capacities for cI binding that are of comparable magnitude with many other systems [Spolar & Record (1994) Science 263, 777-784]. However, this feature in combination with the large negative values of binding enthalpies leads to an enthalpic dominance throughout the physiological temperature range. The resulting thermodynamic profile is opposite to the entropically dominated binding observed for many systems, including lambda cro repressor which binds to the same sites as cI and also employs a helix-turn-helix binding domain [Takeda et al. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89, 8180-8184]. It is suggested that these thermodynamic differences may arise from interactions of the cI repressor's N-terminal "arm" with the DNA. (2) Repressor monomers do not bind significantly to DNA containing either a consensus half-site or a nonconsensus half-site. Binding affinity to the double-consensus operator is much weaker than to any of the natural full-site operators. The same was found with other combinations of half-sites. A mutant repressor (PT158) which is severely defective in dimerization [Burz et al. (1994) Biochemistry 33, 8399-8405] was also found to bind only full-site operators and showed dimeric stoichiometry. (3) The thermal melting unit for N-terminal domains in the absence of DNA was found to reach values of 6-8 (monomer units) at concentrations where high-order oligomers of wild-type protein are formed [Senear et al. (1993) Biochemistry 32, 6179-6189]. However, in the presence of DNA operator sites, the cooperative unit for thermal unfolding was reduced to precisely two monomers, indicating that the N-terminal domain binds strictly as a dimer. (4) Significant nonadditivity was observed for the repressor binding enthalpies and heat capacities determined with multiple combinations of full-site operators.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)