Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) patients with inherited defects in nucleotide excision repair (NER) are unable to excise from their DNA bulky photoproducts induced by UV radiation and therefore develop accelerated actinic damage, including cancer, on sun-exposed tissue. Some XP patients also develop a characteristic neurodegeneration believed to result from their inability to repair neuronal DNA damaged by endogenous metabolites since the harmful UV radiation in sunlight does not reach neurons. Free radicals, which are abundant in neurons, induce DNA lesions that, if unrepaired, might cause the XP neurodegeneration. Searching for such a lesion, we developed a synthesis for 8,5-(S)-cyclo-2-deoxyadenosine (cyclo-dA), a free radical-induced bulky lesion, and incorporated it into DNA to test its repair in mammalian cell extracts and living cells. Using extracts of normal and mutant Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells to test for NER and adult rat brain extracts to test for base excision repair, we found that cyclo-dA is repaired by NER and not by base excision repair. We measured host cell reactivation, which reflects a cell's capacity for NER, by transfecting CHO and XP cells with DNA constructs containing a single cyclo-dA or a cyclobutane thymine dimer at a specific site on the transcribed strand of a luciferase reporter gene. We found that, like the cyclobutane thymine dimer, cyclo-dA is a strong block to gene expression in CHO and human cells. Cyclo-dA was repaired extremely poorly in NER-deficient CHO cells and in cells from patients in XP complementation group A with neurodegeneration. Based on these findings, we propose that cyclo-dA is a candidate for an endogenous DNA lesion that might contribute to neurodegeneration in XP.

UV-induced DNA lesions are important contributors to mutagenesis and cancer, but it is not fully understood how the chromosomal landscape influences UV lesion formation and repair. Genome-wide profiling of repair activity in UV irradiated cells has revealed significant variations in repair kinetics across the genome, not only among large chromatin domains, but also at individual transcription factor binding sites. Here we report that there is also a striking but predictable variation in initial UV damage levels across a eukaryotic genome. We used a new high-throughput sequencing method, known as CPD-seq, to precisely map UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) at single-nucleotide resolution throughout the yeast genome. This analysis revealed that individual nucleosomes significantly alter CPD formation, protecting nucleosomal DNA with an inward rotational setting, even though such DNA is, on average, more intrinsically prone to form CPD lesions. CPD formation is also inhibited by DNAbound transcription factors, in effect shielding important DNA elements from UV damage. Analysis of CPD repair revealed that initial differences in CPD damage formation often persist, even at later repair time points. Furthermore, our high-resolution data demonstrate, to our knowledge for the first time, that CPD repair is significantly less efficient at translational positions near the dyad of strongly positioned nucleosomes in the yeast genome. These findings define the global roles of nucleosomes and transcription factors in both UV damage formation and repair, and have important implications for our understanding of UV-induced mutagenesis in human cancers.DNA repair | DNA damage | nucleosome | chromatin | transcription factor U ltraviolet (UV) light causes extensive damage to DNA by inducing the formation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and, to a lesser extent, 6-4 pyrimidine-pyrimidone photoproducts (6-4PPs). If unrepaired, these DNA lesions block normal DNA replication and are major contributors to mutagenesis in skin cancers (1). CPDs and 6-4PPs are primarily repaired in cells by the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway (1). CPD lesions in actively transcribed strands (TS) of DNA are repaired rapidly by the transcription coupled-NER (TC-NER) branch of this repair pathway, which is triggered by RNA polymerase II stalling at UV damage (2, 3). In contrast, CPD lesions in the remainder of the genome are repaired by the global genome NER (GG-NER) subpathway. Differences in repair rates between transcribed and nontranscribed DNA, and between accessible and inaccessible chromatin domains, have been invoked to explain the mutational heterogeneity in many cancer genomes (4-6). To gain new insight into the mutational processes that lead to human cancer, however, a more detailed understanding is needed of the complex interplay of UV damage formation and repair across the genome.Our understanding of how NER operates in different sequence and chromatin contexts has been aided by two recent genome-wide surveys of NER ac...

Recurrent mutations are frequently associated with transcription factor (TF) binding sites (TFBS) in melanoma, but the mechanism driving mutagenesis at TFBS is unclear. Here, we use a method called CPD-seq to map the distribution of UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) across the human genome at single nucleotide resolution. Our results indicate that CPD lesions are elevated at active TFBS, an effect that is primarily due to E26 transformation-specific (ETS) TFs. We show that ETS TFs induce a unique signature of CPD hotspots that are highly correlated with recurrent mutations in melanomas, despite high repair activity at these sites. ETS1 protein renders its DNA binding targets extremely susceptible to UV damage in vitro, due to binding-induced perturbations in the DNA structure that favor CPD formation. These findings define a mechanism responsible for recurrent mutations in melanoma and reveal that DNA binding by ETS TFs is inherently mutagenic in UV-exposed cells.

Rpb9, a non-essential subunit of RNA polymerase II, mediates a transcription-coupled repair (TCR) subpathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This subpathway initiates at the same upstream site as the previously identified Rad26 subpathway. However, the Rpb9 subpathway operates more effectively in the coding region than in the region upstream of the transcription start site, whereas the Rad26 subpathway operates equally in the two regions. Rpb4, another non-essential subunit of RNA polymerase II, plays a dual role in regulating the two subpathways, suppressing the Rpb9 subpathway and facilitating the Rad26 subpathway. Simultaneous deletion of RPB9 and RAD26 genes completely abolishes TCR in both the coding and upstream regions, indicating that no other TCR subpathway exists in RNA polymerase II-transcribed genes.

a DNase I cut site was incorrectly given as a 3' phosphate. The liberation of fragments with 3' hydroxyls by this enzyme makes the charge of these fragments the same as that of those liberated by T4 polymerase-exonuclease. The latter fragments differ only by the presence of a PD (cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer) at the 3' end.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 84, pp. 6644-6648, October 1987 Biochemistry UV-induced formation of pyrimidine dimers in nucleosome core DNA is strongly modulated with a period of 10.3 bases (UV photoproduct ABSTRACTWe have determined the distribution of the major UV-induced photoproducts in nucleosome core DNA using the 3'-*5' exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase, which has been shown to stop digestion immediately 3' to UV-induced pyrimidine dimers. This assay is extremely sensitive since all DNA fragments without photoproducts (background) are reduced to small oligonucleotides, which can be separated from those fragments containing photoproducts. The results show that the distribution of UV-induced photoproducts (primarily cyclobutane dipyrimidines) is not uniform throughout core DNA but displays a striking 10.3 (± 0.1) base periodicity. Furthermore, this characteristic distribution of photoproducts was obtained regardless of whether nucleosome core DNA was isolated from UV-irradiated intact chromatin fibers, histone H1-depleted chromatin fibers, isolated mononucleosomes, or cells in culture. The yield of pyrimidine dimers along the DNA seems to be modulated in a manner that reflects structural features of the nucleosome unit, possibly core histone-DNA interactions, since this pattern was not obtained for UV-irradiated core DNA either free in solution or bound tightly to calcium phosphate crystals. Based on their location relative to DNase I cutting sites, the sites of maximum pyrimidine dimer formation in core DNA mapped to positions where the phosphate backbone is farthest from the core histone surface. These results indicate that within the core region of nucleosomes, histone-DNA interactions significantly alter the quantum yield of cyclobutane dipyrimidines, possibly by restraining conformational changes in the DNA helix required for formation of these photoproducts.Irradiation by UV light produces a variety of lesions in cellular DNA, which, if unrepaired, may have lethal, mutagenic, or carcinogenic effects (1). The major lesion produced is the cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (PD) formed between adjacent pyrimidines (2, 3), and the photochemistry of the formation of this lesion has been studied in detail (3). Several other photoproducts are also formed to a lesser extent. Among these are the pyrimidine-pyrimidone(6-4) adducts, which may play an important biological role since they have been shown to correlate with some mutational "hot spots" in specific DNA sequences (4).Since the "target" for PD formation in intact cells is DNA folded into the compact structure of chromatin (for reviews on chromatin structure, see refs. 5 and 6), it is important to understand the influence of...