Recombinational substrates designed to study recombination between unique and repetitive sequences in vivo (sister-chromatid Contributed by Ronald W. Davis, December 29, 1986 ABSTRACT Three recombination events, reciprocal recombination, sister-chromatid recombination, and gene conversion, were studied using substrates designed in vitro. Each tyje of recombination event can be monitored at any chromosomal location. We have shown that sister-chromatid recombination is induced mitotically by DNA damaging agents, such as methyl methanesulfonate and y-rays, but is decreased mitotically in strains defective in rad52. Reciprocal recombination by which circular plasmids integrate into the genome is unaffected by rad52 defective alleles and occurs by a different recombination pathway. Mechanisms are suggested by which gene conversion between sister chromatids can generate chromosome rearrangements.

Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) can occur by several recombination mechanisms, including those directly initiated by double-strand breaks (DSBs), such as gap repair and break-induced replication (BIR), and those initiated when DNA polymerases stall, such as template switching. To elucidate SCE recombination mechanisms, we determined whether spontaneous and DNA damage-associated SCE requires specific genes within the RAD52 and RAD3 epistasis groups in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains containing two his3 fragments, his3-Delta5' and his3-Delta3'::HOcs. SCE frequencies were measured after cells were exposed to UV, X-rays, 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide (4-NQO) and methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), or when an HO endonuclease-induced DSB was introduced at his3-Delta3'::HOcs. Our data indicate that genes involved in gap repair, such as RAD55, RAD57 and RAD54, are required for DNA damage-associated SCE but not for spontaneous SCE. RAD50 and RAD59, genes required for BIR, are required for X-ray-associated SCE but not for SCE stimulated by HO-induced DSBs. In comparison with wild type, rates of spontaneous SCE are 10-fold lower in rad51 rad1 but not in either rad51 rad50 or rad51 rad59 double mutants. We propose that gap repair mechanisms are important in DNA damage-associated recombination, whereas alternative pathways, including a template switch pathway, play a role in spontaneous SCE.

Nucleotide balance is critically important not only in replicating cells but also in quiescent cells. This is especially true in the nervous system, where there is a high demand for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) produced from mitochondria. Mitochondria are particularly prone to oxidative stress-associated DNA damage because nucleotide imbalance can lead to mitochondrial depletion due to low replication fidelity. Failure to maintain nucleotide balance due to genetic defects can result in infantile death; however there is great variability in clinical presentation for particular diseases. This review compares genetic diseases that result from defects in specific nucleotide salvage enzymes and a signaling kinase that activates nucleotide salvage after DNA damage exposure. These diseases include Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, mitochondrial depletion syndromes, and ataxia telangiectasia. Although treatment options are available to palliate symptoms of these diseases, there is no cure. The conclusions drawn from this review include the critical role of guanine nucleotides in preventing neurodegeneration, the limitations of animals as disease models, and the need to further understand nucleotide imbalances in treatment regimens. Such knowledge will hopefully guide future studies into clinical therapies for genetic diseases.

Genetic instability in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae rad9 mutant correlates with failure to arrest the cell cycle in response to DNA damage. We quantitated the DNA damage-associated stimulation of directed translocations in RAD9؉ and rad9 mutants. Directed translocations were generated by selecting for His ؉ prototrophs that result from homologous, mitotic recombination between two truncated his3 genes, GAL1::his3-⌬5 and trp1::his3-⌬3::HOcs. Compared to RAD9 ؉ strains, the rad9 mutant exhibits a 5-fold higher rate of spontaneous, mitotic recombination and a greater than 10-fold increase in the number of UV-and X-ray-stimulated His ؉ recombinants that contain translocations. The higher level of recombination in rad9 mutants correlated with the appearance of nonreciprocal translocations and additional karyotypic changes, indicating that genomic instability also occurred among non-his3 sequences. Both enhanced spontaneous recombination and DNA damage-associated recombination are dependent on RAD1, a gene involved in DNA excision repair. The hyperrecombinational phenotype of the rad9 mutant was correlated with a deficiency in cell cycle arrest at the G 2 -M checkpoint by demonstrating that if rad9 mutants were arrested in G 2 before irradiation, the numbers both of UV-and ␥-ray-stimulated recombinants were reduced. The importance of G 2 arrest in DNA damageinduced sister chromatid exchange (SCE) was evident by a 10-fold reduction in HO endonuclease-induced SCE and no detectable X-ray stimulation of SCE in a rad9 mutant. We suggest that one mechanism by which the RAD9-mediated G 2 -M checkpoint may reduce the frequency of DNA damage-induced translocations is by channeling the repair of double-strand breaks into SCE.It has been postulated that DNA damage-induced cell cycle arrest at cell cycle checkpoints maintains genomic stability by allowing time for DNA repair prior to the replication or division of damaged chromatids (67, 68). Consistent with this idea, mutations in genes controlling cell cycle arrest at the G 1 -S checkpoint and G 2 -M checkpoint confer enhanced genetic instability. For example, p53 mutations, which confer deficiencies in the G 1 -S checkpoint, are correlated with enhanced spontaneous and UV-stimulated amplification of CAD genes (35, 73). Cells cultured from patients with ataxia telangiectasia that are deficient in cell cycle arrest at both the G 1 -S and G 2 -M cell cycle checkpoints (7, 49) also exhibit higher frequencies of chromosomal rearrangements, including translocations (37) and deletions (38), and chromosome end-to-end joining (41).In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, DNA-damaging agents stimulate mitotic, homologous recombination and induce cell cycle arrest at cell cycle checkpoints (31, 59). For example, DNA damage-associated recombination between his3 fragments positioned at predetermined loci can result in chromosomal rearrangements, including translocations (18, 19), duplications (16), and deletions (54). HO endonuclease-generated doublestrand breaks (DSBs) stimulate ectopic gene conversi...