scholarly journals Hold on Tight: Lagging-Strand DNA Polymerases Synthesize Multiple Okazaki Fragments without Letting Go

2020 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-8
Author(s):  
Vanessa Kellner ◽  
Duncan J. Smith
Genetics ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polina V Shcherbakova ◽  
Youri I Pavlov

Abstract The base analog 6-N-hydroxylaminopurine (HAP) induces bidirectional GC → AT and AT → GC transitions that are enhanced in DNA polymerase ϵ and δ 3′ → 5′ exonuclease-deficient yeast mutants, pol2-4 and pol3-01, respectively. We have constructed a set of isogenic strains to determine whether the DNA polymerases δ and ϵ contribute equally to proofreading of replication errors provoked by HAP during leading and lagging strand DNA synthesis. Site-specific GC → AT and AT → GC transitions in a Pol→, pol2-4 or pol3-01 genetic background were scored as reversions of ura3 missense alleles. At each site, reversion was increased in only one proofreading-deficient mutant, either pol2-4 or pol3-01, depending on the DNA strand in which HAP incorporation presumably occurred. Measurement of the HAP-induced reversion frequency of the ura3 alleles placed into chromosome III near to the defined active replication origin ARS306 in two orientations indicated that DNA polymerases ϵ and δ correct HAP-induced DNA replication errors on opposite DNA strands.


1999 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 4143-4152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Parenteau ◽  
Raymund J. Wellinger

ABSTRACT The Saccharomyces cerevisiae RAD27 gene encodes the yeast homologue of the mammalian FEN-1 nuclease, a protein that is thought to be involved in the processing of Okazaki fragments during DNA lagging-strand synthesis. One of the predicted DNA lesions occurring in rad27 strains is the presence of single-stranded DNA of the template strand for lagging-strand synthesis. We examined this prediction by analyzing the terminal DNA structures generated during telomere replication in rad27strains. The lengths of the telomeric repeat tracts were found to be destabilized in rad27 strains, indicating that naturally occurring direct repeats are subject to tract expansions and contractions in such strains. Furthermore, abnormally high levels of single-stranded DNA of the templating strand for lagging-strand synthesis were observed in rad27 cells. Overexpression of Dna2p in wild-type cells also yielded single-stranded DNA regions on telomeric DNA and caused a cell growth arrest phenotype virtually identical to that seen for rad27 cells grown at the restrictive temperature. Furthermore, overexpression of the yeast exonuclease Exo1p alleviated the growth arrest induced by both conditions, overexpression of Dna2p and incubation of rad27cells at 37°C. However, the telomere heterogeneity and the appearance of single-stranded DNA are not prevented by the overexpression of Exo1p in these strains, suggesting that this nuclease is not simply redundant with Rad27p. Our data thus provide in vivo evidence for the types of DNA lesions predicted to occur when lagging-strand synthesis is deficient and suggest that Dna2p and Rad27p collaborate in the processing of Okazaki fragments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 74a
Author(s):  
Fernando Cerron ◽  
Grzegorz L. Ciesielski ◽  
Laurie S. Kaguni ◽  
Francisco J. Cao ◽  
Borja Ibarra

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (17) ◽  
pp. 9440-9450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Sui ◽  
Lei Qi ◽  
Ke Zhang ◽  
Natalie Saini ◽  
Leszek J. Klimczak ◽  
...  

Yeast strains with low levels of the replicative DNA polymerases (alpha, delta, and epsilon) have high levels of chromosome deletions, duplications, and translocations. By examining the patterns of mutations induced in strains with low levels of DNA polymerase by the human protein APOBEC3B (a protein that deaminates cytosine in single-stranded DNA), we show dramatically elevated amounts of single-stranded DNA relative to a wild-type strain. During DNA replication, one strand (defined as the leading strand) is replicated processively by DNA polymerase epsilon and the other (the lagging strand) is replicated as short fragments initiated by DNA polymerase alpha and extended by DNA polymerase delta. In the low DNA polymerase alpha and delta strains, the APOBEC-induced mutations are concentrated on the lagging-strand template, whereas in the low DNA polymerase epsilon strain, mutations occur on the leading- and lagging-strand templates with similar frequencies. In addition, for most genes, the transcribed strand is mutagenized more frequently than the nontranscribed strand. Lastly, some of the APOBEC-induced clusters in strains with low levels of DNA polymerase alpha or delta are greater than 10 kb in length.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. 1251-1260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen E. Cronan ◽  
Elena A. Kouzminova ◽  
Andrei Kuzminov

In vitro, purified replisomes drive model replication forks to synthesize continuous leading strands, even without ligase, supporting the semidiscontinuous model of DNA replication. However, nascent replication intermediates isolated from ligase-deficientEscherichia colicomprise only short (on average 1.2-kb) Okazaki fragments. It was long suspected that cells replicate their chromosomal DNA by the semidiscontinuous mode observed in vitro but that, in vivo, the nascent leading strand was artifactually fragmented postsynthesis by excision repair. Here, using high-resolution separation of pulse-labeled replication intermediates coupled with strand-specific hybridization, we show that excision-proficientE. coligenerates leading-strand intermediates >10-fold longer than lagging-strand Okazaki fragments. Inactivation of DNA-repair activities, including ribonucleotide excision, further increased nascent leading-strand size to ∼80 kb, while lagging-strand Okazaki fragments remained unaffected. We conclude that in vivo, repriming occurs ∼70× less frequently on the leading versus lagging strands, and that DNA replication inE. coliis effectively semidiscontinuous.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penghao Xu ◽  
Francesca Storici

ABSTRACTRibonucleoside monophosphate (rNMP) incorporation in DNA is a natural and prominent phenomenon resulting in DNA structural change and genome instability. While DNA polymerases have different rNMP incorporation rates, little is known whether these enzymes incorporate rNMPs following specific sequence patterns. In this study, we analyzed a series of rNMP incorporation datasets, generated from three rNMP mapping techniques, and obtained from Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells expressing wild-type or mutant replicative DNA polymerase and ribonuclease H2 genes. We performed computational analyses of rNMP sites around early and late firing autonomously replicating sequences (ARS’s) of the yeast genome, from which bidirectional, leading and lagging DNA synthesis starts. We find the preference of rNMP incorporation on the leading strand in wild-type DNA polymerase yeast cells. The leading/lagging-strand ratio of rNMP incorporation changes dramatically within 500 nt from ARS’s, highlighting the Pol δ - Pol ε handoff during early leading-strand synthesis. Furthermore, the pattern of rNMP incorporation is markedly distinct between the leading the lagging strand. Overall, our results show the different counts and patterns of rNMP incorporation during DNA replication from ARS, which reflects the different labor of division and rNMP incorporation pattern of Pol δ and Pol ε.


Author(s):  
Haoxuan Liu ◽  
Jianzhi Zhang

ABSTRACTGenes are preferentially encoded on the leading instead of the lagging strand of DNA replication in most bacterial genomes1. This bias likely results from selection against lagging-strand encoding, which can cause head-on collisions between DNA polymerases and RNA polymerases that induce transcriptional abortion, replication delay, and possibly mutagenesis1. But there are still genes encoded on the lagging strand, an observation that has been explained by a balance between deleterious mutations bringing genes from the leading to the lagging strand and purifying selection purging such mutations2. This mutation-selection balance hypothesis predicts that the probability that a gene is encoded on the lagging strand decreases with the detriment of its lagging-strand encoding relative to leading-strand encoding, explaining why highly expressed genes and essential genes are underrepresented on the lagging strand3,4. In a recent study, Merrikh and Merrikh proposed that the observed lagging-strand encoding is adaptive instead of detrimental, due to beneficial mutations brought by the potentially increased mutagenesis resulting from head-on collisions5. They reported empirical observations from comparative genomics that were purported to support their hypothesis5. Here we point out methodological flaws and errors in their analyses and logical problems of their interpretation. Our reanalysis of their data finds no evidence for the adaptive hypothesis.


Genes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Giannattasio ◽  
Dana Branzei

This review discusses a set of experimental results that support the existence of extended strand displacement events during budding yeast lagging strand DNA synthesis. Starting from introducing the mechanisms and factors involved in leading and lagging strand DNA synthesis and some aspects of the architecture of the eukaryotic replisome, we discuss studies on bacterial, bacteriophage and viral DNA polymerases with potent strand displacement activities. We describe proposed pathways of Okazaki fragment processing via short and long flaps, with a focus on experimental results obtained in Saccharomyces cerevisiae that suggest the existence of frequent and extended strand displacement events during eukaryotic lagging strand DNA synthesis, and comment on their implications for genome integrity.


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