The phenotypically similar hamster mutants irs1 and irs1SF exhibit high spontaneous chromosome instability and broad-spectrum mutagen sensitivity, including extreme sensitivity to DNA cross-linking agents. The human XRCC2 and XRCC3 genes, which functionally complement irs1 and irs1SF, respectively, were previously mapped in somatic cell hybrids. Characterization of these genes and sequence alignments reveal that XRCC2 and XRCC3 are members of an emerging family of Rad51-related proteins that likely participate in homologous recombination to maintain chromosome stability and repair DNA damage. XRCC3 is shown to interact directly with HsRad51, and like Rad55 and Rad57 in yeast, may cooperate with HsRad51 during recombinational repair. Analysis of the XRCC2 mutation in irs1 implies that XRCC2's function is not essential for viability in cultured hamster cells.

We describe the cloning and function of the human XRCCI gene, which is the first mammalian gene isolated that affects cellular sensitivity to ionizing radiation. The CHO mutant EM9 has 10-fold-higher sensitivity to ethyl methanesulfonate, 1.8-fold-higher sensitivity to ionizing radiation, a reduced capacity to rejoin singlestrand DNA breaks, and a 10-fold-elevated level of sister chromatid exchange compared with the CHO parental cells. The complementing human gene was cloned from a cosmid library of a tertiary transformant. Two cosmid clones produced transformants that showed -100% correction of the repair defect in EM9 cells, as determined by the kinetics of strand break repair, cell survival, and the level of sister chromatid exchange. A nearly full-length clone obtained from the pcD2 human cDNA expression library gave =80% correction of EM9, as determined by the level of sister chromatid exchange. Based on an analysis of the nucleotide sequence of the cDNA insert compared with that of the 5' end of the gene from a cosmid clone, the cDNA clone appeared to be missing -100 bp of transcribed sequence, including 26 nucleotides of coding sequence. The cDNA probe detected a single transcript of -2.2 kb in HeLa polyadenylated RNA by Northern (RNA) blot hybridization. From the open reading frame and the positions of likely start sites for transcription and translation, the size of the putative XRCC1 protein is 633 amino acids (69.5 kDa). The size of the XRCCI gene is 33 kb, as determined by localizing the endpoints on a restriction endonuclease site map of one cosmid clone. The deduced amino acid sequence did not show significant homology with any protein in the protein sequence data bases examined.The processes that repair DNA damage, as well as those responsible for the rearrangement of chromosomal DNA through recombinational events, are of fundamental importance in mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. In Escherichia coli, a large number of genes have been identified that participate in repair and recombination (15,55,56). In the simpler eucaryotes Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster, the genetic analysis of these systems is less advanced, but here too progress has been made in identifying many genes that participate in repair processes (5,15,34). Progress has been much slower with mammalian cells because of the larger sizes of genes, longer cell doubling times, and intrinsic limitations on performing genetic analyses.The use of repair-deficient rodent cell mutants has proved to be the most successful approach to the molecular cloning of human DNA repair genes (45). Mutants of CHO cells that are defective in the nucleotide excision repair pathway (48, 61) have provided a tool for isolating the human genes ERCCI (53, 60), ERCC2 (57, 58), ERCC3 (59), ERCC5 (29), and ERCC6 (18) on the basis of functional complementation of the mutations by transfection of human genomic DNA, followed by cosmid or bacteriophage vector cloning. These five ERCC (excision repair cross-complementing) genes correct mutations that ...

Fanconi anaemia (FA) is a chromosomal instability disorder characterized by cellular sensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinking agents and a high risk of cancer. Six of the eight proteins encoded by the known FA genes form a nuclear complex which is required for the monoubiquitination of the FANCD2 protein. FANCD2 complexes and colocalizes with BRCA1, but its presumptive role in DNA repair has not yet been clearly defined. We used yeast two-hybrid analysis to test for interaction between FANCD2 and 10 proteins involved in homologous recombination repair. FANCD2 did not interact with RAD51, the five RAD51 paralogs, RAD52, RAD54 or DMC1. However, it bound to a highly conserved C-terminal site in BRCA2 that also binds FANCG/XRCC9. FANCD2 and BRCA2 can be coimmunoprecipitated from cell extracts of both human and Chinese hamster wild-type cells, thus confirming that the interaction occurs in vivo. Formation of nuclear foci of FANCD2 was normal in the BRCA2 mutant CAPAN-1 cells, which indicates that the recruitment of FANCD2 to sites of DNA-repair is independent of wild-type BRCA2 function. FANCD2 colocalized with RAD51 in foci following treatment with mitomycin C or hydroxyurea, and colocalized very tightly with PCNA after treatment with hydroxyurea. These findings suggest that FANCD2 may have a role in the cellular response to stalled replication forks or in the repair of replication-associated double-strand breaks, irrespective of the type of primary DNA lesion.

No abstract

The genetically complex disease Fanconi anemia (FA) comprises cancer predisposition, developmental defects, and bone marrow failure due to elevated apoptosis. The FA cellular phenotype includes universal sensitivity to DNA crosslinking damage, symptoms of oxidative stress, and reduced mutability at the X-linked HPRT gene. In this review article, we present a new heuristic molecular model that accommodates these varied features of FA cells. In our view, the FANCA, -C, and -G proteins, which are both cytoplasmic and nuclear, have an integrated dual role in which they sense and convey information about cytoplasmic oxidative stress to the nucleus, where they participate in the further assembly and functionality of the nuclear core complex (NCCFA= FANCA/B/C/E/F/G/L). In turn, NCCFA facilitates DNA replication at sites of base damage and strand breaks by performing the critical monoubiquitination of FANCD2, an event that somehow helps stabilize blocked and broken replication forks. This stabilization facilitates two kinds of processes: translesion synthesis at sites of blocking lesions (e.g., oxidative base damage), which produces point mutations by error-prone polymerases, and homologous recombination-mediated restart of broken forks, which arise spontaneously and when crosslinks are unhooked by the ERCC1-XPF endonuclease. In the absence of the critical FANCD2 monoubiquitination step, broken replication forks further lose chromatid continuity by collapsing into a configuration that is more difficult to restart through recombination and prone to aberrant repair through nonhomologous end joining. Thus, the FA regulatory pathway promotes chromosome integrity by monitoring oxidative stress and coping efficiently with the accompanying oxidative DNA damage during DNA replication.