A type II topoisomerase that negatively supercoils closed circular double-stranded (ds) DNA in an ATP-dependent manner to maintain chromosomes in an underwound state. This makes better substrates for topoisomerase IV (ParC and ParE) which is the main enzyme that unlinks newly replicated chromosomes in E.coli. Gyrase catalyzes the interconversion of other topological isomers of dsDNA rings, including catenanes. Relaxes negatively supercoiled DNA in an ATP-independent manner. E.coli gyrase has higher supercoiling activity than many other bacterial gyrases; at comparable concentrations E.coli gyrase introduces more supercoils faster than M.tuberculosis gyrase, while M.tuberculosis gyrase has higher decatenation than supercoiling activity compared to E.coli. E.coli makes 15% more negative supercoils in pBR322 plasmid DNA than S.typhimurium; the S.typhimurium GyrB subunit is toxic in E.coli, while the E.coli copy can be expressed in S.typhimurium even though the 2 subunits have 777/804 residues identical. The enzymatic differences between E.coli gyrase and topoisomerase IV are largely due to the GyrA C-terminal domain (approximately residues 524-841) and specifically the GyrA-box; Negative supercoiling favors strand separation, and DNA replication, transcription, recombination and repair, all of which involve strand separation. Type II topoisomerases break and join 2 DNA strands simultaneously in an ATP-dependent manner.