The major human AP endonuclease APE1 (HAP1, APEX, Ref1) initiates the repair of abasic sites generated either spontaneously, from attack of bases by free radicals, or during the course of the repair of damaged bases. APE1 therefore plays a central role in the base excision repair (BER) pathway. We report here that XRCC1, another essential protein involved in the maintenance of genome stability, physically interacts with APE1 and stimulates its enzymatic activities. A truncated form of APE1, lacking the first 35 amino acids, although catalytically proficient, loses the affinity for XRCC1 and is not stimulated by XRCC1. Chinese ovary cell lines mutated in XRCC1 have a diminished capacity to initiate the repair of AP sites. This defect is compensated by the expression of XRCC1. XRCC1, acting as both a scaffold and a modulator of the different activities involved in BER, would provide a physical link between the incision and sealing steps of the AP site repair process. The interaction described extends the coordinating role of XRCC1 to the initial step of the repair of DNA abasic sites.

The generation of reactive oxygen species in the cell provokes, among other lesions, the formation of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoG) in DNA. Due to mispairing with adenine during replication, 8-oxoG is highly mutagenic. To minimise the mutagenic potential of this oxidised purine, human cells have a specific 8-oxoG DNA glycosylase/AP lyase (hOGG1) that initiates the base excision repair (BER) of 8-oxoG. We show here that in vitro this first enzyme of the BER pathway is relatively inefficient because of a high affinity for the product of the reaction it catalyses (half-life of the complex is >2 h), leading to a lack of hOGG1 turnover. However, the glycosylase activity of hOGG1 is stimulated by the major human AP endonuclease, HAP1 (APE1), the enzyme that performs the subsequent step in BER, as well as by a catalytically inactive mutant (HAP1-D210N). In the presence of HAP1, the AP sites generated by the hOGG1 DNA glycosylase can be occupied by the endonuclease, avoiding the re-association of hOGG1. Moreover, the glycosylase has a higher affinity for a non-cleaved AP site than for the cleaved DNA product generated by HAP1. This would shift the equilibrium towards the free glycosylase, making it available to initiate new catalytic cycles. In contrast, HAP1 does not affect the AP lyase activity of hOGG1. This stimulation of only the hOGG1 glycosylase reaction accentuates the uncoupling of its glycosylase and AP lyase activities. These data indicate that, in the presence of HAP1, the BER of 8-oxoG residues can be highly efficient by bypassing the AP lyase activity of hOGG1 and thus excluding a potentially rate limiting step.

Y‐family DNA polymerases have spacious active sites that can accommodate a wide variety of geometric distortions. As a consequence, they are considerably more error‐prone than high‐fidelity replicases. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the in vivo activity of these polymerases is tightly regulated, so as to minimize their inadvertent access to primer‐termini. We report here that one such mechanism employed by human cells relies on a specific and direct interaction between DNA polymerases ι and η with ubiquitin (Ub). Indeed, we show that both polymerases interact noncovalently with free polyUb chains, as well as mono‐ubiquitinated proliferating cell nuclear antigen (Ub‐PCNA). Mutants of polι (P692R) and polη (H654A) were isolated that are defective in their interactions with polyUb and Ub‐PCNA, whilst retaining their ability to interact with unmodified PCNA. Interestingly, the polymerase mutants exhibit significantly lower levels of replication foci in response to DNA damage, thereby highlighting the biological importance of the polymerase–Ub interaction in regulating the access of the TLS polymerases to stalled replication forks in vivo.

Y-family DNA polymerases can replicate past a variety of damaged bases in vitro but, with the exception of DNA polymerase h (polh), which is defective in xeroderma pigmentosum variants, there is little information on the functions of these polymerases in vivo. Here, we show that DNA polymerase i (poli), like polh, associates with the replication machinery and accumulates at stalled replication forks following DNA-damaging treatment. We show that polh and poli foci form with identical kinetics and spatial distributions, suggesting that localization of these two polymerases is tightly co-ordinated within the nucleus. Furthermore, localization of poli in replication foci is largely dependent on the presence of polh. Using several different approaches, we demonstrate that polh and poli interact with each other physically and that the C-terminal 224 amino acids of poli are suf®cient for both the interaction with polh and accumulation in replication foci. Our results provide strong evidence that polh targets poli to the replication machinery, where it may play a general role in maintaining genome integrity as well as participating in translesion DNA synthesis. Keywords: DNA polymerase/replication foci/UV light/ xeroderma pigmentosum variants Introduction DNA damage occurs ubiquitously in all cells. In order to maintain the stability of the genome, cells have evolved mechanisms not only to repair all types of DNA damage, but also to replicate DNA from which the damage has not been removed (post-replication repair). In the case of human cells, a major mechanism for carrying out postreplication repair involves translesion synthesis (TLS) past damaged sites. TLS is de®cient in the variant form of the sun-sensitive cancer-prone disorder xeroderma pigmentosum (XP). The gene defective in these XP variants (XP-V) encodes a DNA polymerase, polh (Johnson et al., 1999;Masutani et al., 1999), which is able to replicate undamaged templates or those containing cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs, the major UV photoproduct) with equal ef®ciencies (Masutani et al., 1999). TLS by polh is the principal mechanism for bypassing CPDs in human cells. Although the lack of polh in XP-V cells does not confer substantial hypersensitivity to killing by UV light, UV hypermutability is increased to levels approaching those in classical XP cells, which are de®cient in nucleotide excision repair (Maher et al., 1976).Polh is a member of the recently discovered Y-family of DNA polymerases (Ohmori et al., 2001), which have been best characterized for their lesion-bypassing properties (reviewed in Goodman, 2002). There are, however, few studies to date to indicate how these polymerases function inside cells. In previous work, we showed that in S-phase cells, polh localizes in replication foci. On exposure to DNA-damaging treatments, we observed an accumulation of polh-containing foci. These appear to represent replication factories in which replication forks are stalled at lesions (Kannouche et al., 2001). The C-terminal 70 amino acids of polh are requ...

XRCC1 participates in DNA single strand break and base excision repair (BER) to preserve genetic stability in mammalian cells. XRCC1 participation in these pathways is mediated by its interactions with several of the acting enzymes. Here, we report that XRCC1 interacts physically and functionally with hOGG1, the human DNA glycosylase that initiates the repair by BER of the mutagenic oxidized base 8-oxoguanine. This interaction leads to a 2-to 3-fold stimulation of the DNA glycosylase activity of hOGG1. XRCC1 stimulates the formation of the hOGG1 Schiff-base DNA intermediate without interfering with the endonuclease activity of APE1, the second enzyme in the pathway. On the contrary, the stimulation in the appearance of the incision product seems to reflect the addition of the effects of XRCC1 on the two first enzymes of the pathway. The data presented support a model by which XRCC1 will pass on the DNA intermediate from hOGG1 to the endonuclease APE1. This results in an acceleration of the overall repair process of oxidized purines to yield an APE1-cleaved abasic site, which can be used as a substrate by DNA polymerase ␤. More importantly, the results unveil a highly coordinated mechanism by which XRCC1, through its multiple protein-protein interactions, extends its orchestrating role from the base excision step to the resealing of the repaired DNA strand.A major threat to genetic stability is the damaging of DNA by either endogenous or exogenous compounds. This is underscored by the cancer-prone phenotype of human cells defective in DNA repair processes. Exposure of the cellular DNA to reactive oxygen species (ROS), 1 generated either by the normal metabolism of the cell or by chemical and physical exogenous agents, is at the origin of lesions that can have genotoxic or mutagenic consequences. To avoid the effects of ROS and, therefore, to maintain the integrity of their genetic information, organisms have evolved multiple DNA repair mechanisms (1). Because of its capacity to pair with an adenine during replication, 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG), an oxidized derivative of guanine, is arguably the major mutagenic lesion in DNA. Indeed, in Escherichia coli, the inactivation of the genes involved in the repair of this oxidized base leads to one of the strongest spontaneous mutator phenotypes, characterized by the exclusive increase in G to T transversions. Like for other ROS-induced modifications of DNA, 8-oxoG is mainly repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathway. This pathway is initiated by the recognition and excision of the oxidized guanine by a DNA glycosylase, OGG1 being the major one in yeast and mammalian cells (2). In human cells, the resulting abasic (apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP)) site can be cleaved by a second enzymatic activity of the hOGG1 polypeptide, namely an AP lyase activity. If such a reaction takes place, the nick produced has a 3Ј-open aldehyde residue that is supposed to be removed by the 3Ј-deoxyribose phosphatase activity of APE1, the major AP endonuclease. However, recent data s...

Y-family DNA polymerases are believed to facilitate the replicative bypass of damaged DNA in a process commonly referred to as translesion synthesis. With the exception of DNA polymerase (pol), which is defective in humans with the Xeroderma pigmentosum variant (XP-V) phenotype, little is known about the cellular function(s) of the remaining human Y-family DNA polymerases. We report here that an interaction between human DNA polymerase (pol) and the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) stimulates the processivity of pol in a template-dependent manner in vitro. Mutations in one of the putative PCNA-binding motifs (PIP box) of pol or the interdomain connector loop of PCNA diminish the binding between pol and PCNA and concomitantly reduce PCNA-dependent stimulation of pol activity. Furthermore, although retaining its capacity to interact with pol in vivo, the pol-PIP box mutant fails to accumulate in replication foci. Thus, PCNA, acting as both a scaffold and a modulator of the different activities involved in replication, appears to recruit and coordinate replicative and translesion DNA synthesis polymerases to ensure genome integrity.

The size and composition of dNTP (deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate) pools influence the accuracy of DNA synthesis and consequently the genetic stability of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. In order to keep the dNTP pool in balance, the synthesis and degradation of DNA precursors must be precisely regulated. One such mechanism involves catabolic activities that convert deoxynucleoside triphosphates into their monophosphate form. Human cells possess an all-α NTP (nucleoside triphosphate) pyrophosphatase named DCTPP1 [dCTP pyrophosphatase 1; also known as XTP3-TPA (XTP3-transactivated protein A)]. In the present study, we provide an extensive characterization of this enzyme which is ubiquitously distributed in the nucleus, cytosol and mitochondria. Interestingly, we found that in addition to dCTP, methyl-dCTP and 5-halogenated nucleotides, DCTPP1 hydrolyses 5-formyl-dCTP very efficiently and with the lowest Km value described so far. Because the biological function of mammalian all-α NTP pyrophosphatases remains uncertain, we examined the role of DCTPP1 in the maintenance of pyrimidine nucleotide pools and cellular sensitivity to pyrimidine analogues. DCTPP1-deficient cells accumulate high levels of dCTP and are hypersensitive to exposure to the nucleoside analogues 5-iodo-2'-deoxycytidine and 5-methyl-2'-deoxycytidine. The results of the present study indicate that DCTPP1 has a central role in the balance of dCTP and the metabolism of deoxycytidine analogues, thus contributing to the preservation of genome integrity.

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