The Bacillus subtilis PriA winged helix domain is critical for surviving DNA damage

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay A. Matthews ◽  
Lyle A. Simmons

DNA replication forks regularly encounter lesions or other impediments that result in a blockage to fork progression. PriA is one of the key proteins used by virtually all eubacteria to survive conditions that result in a blockage to replication fork movement. PriA directly binds stalled replication forks and initiates fork restart allowing for chromosomes to be fully duplicated under stressful conditions. We used a CRISPR-Cas gene editing approach to map PriA residues critical for surviving DNA damage induced by several antibiotics in B. subtilis . We find that the winged helix (WH) domain in B. subtilis PriA is critical for surviving DNA damage and participates in DNA binding. The critical in vivo function of the WH domain mapped to distinct surfaces that were also conserved among several Gram-positive human pathogens. In addition, we identified an amino acid linker neighboring the WH domain that is greatly extended in B. subtilis due to an insertion. Shortening this linker induced a hypersensitive phenotype to DNA damage, suggesting that its extended length is critical for efficient replication fork restart in vivo . Because the WH domain is dispensable in E. coli PriA, our findings demonstrate an important difference in the contribution of the WH domain during fork restart in B. subtilis . Further, with our results we suggest that this highly variable region in PriA could provide different functions across diverse bacterial organisms. IMPORTANCE PriA is an important protein found in virtually all bacteria that recognizes stalled replication forks orchestrating fork restart. PriA homologs contain a winged helix (WH) domain which is dispensable in E. coli and functions in a fork restart pathway that is not conserved outside of E. coli and closely related proteobacteria. We analyzed the importance of the WH domain and an associated linker in B. subtilis and found that both are critical for surviving DNA damage. This function mapped to a small motif at the C-terminal end of the WH domain, which is also conserved in pathogenic bacteria. The motif was not required for DNA binding and therefore may perform a novel function in the replication fork restart pathway.

2015 ◽  
Vol 197 (17) ◽  
pp. 2792-2809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarita Mallik ◽  
Ellen M. Popodi ◽  
Andrew J. Hanson ◽  
Patricia L. Foster

ABSTRACTEscherichia coli's DNA polymerase IV (Pol IV/DinB), a member of the Y family of error-prone polymerases, is induced during the SOS response to DNA damage and is responsible for translesion bypass and adaptive (stress-induced) mutation. In this study, the localization of Pol IV after DNA damage was followed using fluorescent fusions. After exposure ofE. colito DNA-damaging agents, fluorescently tagged Pol IV localized to the nucleoid as foci. Stepwise photobleaching indicated ∼60% of the foci consisted of three Pol IV molecules, while ∼40% consisted of six Pol IV molecules. Fluorescently tagged Rep, a replication accessory DNA helicase, was recruited to the Pol IV foci after DNA damage, suggesting that thein vitrointeraction between Rep and Pol IV reported previously also occursin vivo. Fluorescently tagged RecA also formed foci after DNA damage, and Pol IV localized to them. To investigate if Pol IV localizes to double-strand breaks (DSBs), an I-SceI endonuclease-mediated DSB was introduced close to a fluorescently labeled LacO array on the chromosome. After DSB induction, Pol IV localized to the DSB site in ∼70% of SOS-induced cells. RecA also formed foci at the DSB sites, and Pol IV localized to the RecA foci. These results suggest that Pol IV interacts with RecAin vivoand is recruited to sites of DSBs to aid in the restoration of DNA replication.IMPORTANCEDNA polymerase IV (Pol IV/DinB) is an error-prone DNA polymerase capable of bypassing DNA lesions and aiding in the restart of stalled replication forks. In this work, we demonstratein vivolocalization of fluorescently tagged Pol IV to the nucleoid after DNA damage and to DNA double-strand breaks. We show colocalization of Pol IV with two proteins: Rep DNA helicase, which participates in replication, and RecA, which catalyzes recombinational repair of stalled replication forks. Time course experiments suggest that Pol IV recruits Rep and that RecA recruits Pol IV. These findings providein vivoevidence that Pol IV aids in maintaining genomic stability not only by bypassing DNA lesions but also by participating in the restoration of stalled replication forks.


2008 ◽  
Vol 190 (6) ◽  
pp. 2004-2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim W. Overton ◽  
Marta C. Justino ◽  
Ying Li ◽  
Joana M. Baptista ◽  
Ana M. P. Melo ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Expression of two genes of unknown function, Staphylococcus aureus scdA and Neisseria gonorrhoeae dnrN, is induced by exposure to oxidative or nitrosative stress. We show that DnrN and ScdA are di-iron proteins that protect their hosts from damage caused by exposure to nitric oxide and to hydrogen peroxide. Loss of FNR-dependent activation of aniA expression and NsrR-dependent repression of norB and dnrN expression on exposure to NO was restored in the gonococcal parent strain but not in a dnrN mutant, suggesting that DnrN is necessary for the repair of NO damage to the gonococcal transcription factors, FNR and NsrR. Restoration of aconitase activity destroyed by exposure of S. aureus to NO or H2O2 required a functional scdA gene. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of recombinant ScdA purified from Escherichia coli confirmed the presence of a di-iron center. The recombinant scdA plasmid, but not recombinant plasmids encoding the complete Escherichia coli sufABCDSE or iscRSUAhscBAfdx operons, complemented repair defects of an E. coli ytfE mutant. Analysis of the protein sequence database revealed the importance of the two proteins based on the widespread distribution of highly conserved homologues in both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria that are human pathogens. We provide in vivo and in vitro evidence that Fe-S clusters damaged by exposure to NO and H2O2 can be repaired by this new protein family, for which we propose the name repair of iron centers, or RIC, proteins.


2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania M. Roberts ◽  
Iram Waris Zaidi ◽  
Jessica A. Vaisica ◽  
Matthias Peter ◽  
Grant W. Brown

RTT107 (ESC4, YHR154W) encodes a BRCA1 C-terminal domain protein that is important for recovery from DNA damage during S phase. Rtt107 is a substrate of the checkpoint kinase Mec1, and it forms complexes with DNA repair enzymes, including the nuclease subunit Slx4, but the role of Rtt107 in the DNA damage response remains unclear. We find that Rtt107 interacts with chromatin when cells are treated with compounds that cause replication forks to arrest. This damage-dependent chromatin binding requires the acetyltransferase Rtt109, but it does not require acetylation of the known Rtt109 target, histone H3-K56. Chromatin binding of Rtt107 also requires the cullin Rtt101, which seems to play a direct role in Rtt107 recruitment, because the two proteins are found in complex with each other. Finally, we provide evidence that Rtt107 is bound at or near stalled replication forks in vivo. Together, these results indicate that Rtt109, Rtt101, and Rtt107, which genetic evidence suggests are functionally related, form a DNA damage response pathway that recruits Rtt107 complexes to damaged or stalled replication forks.


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1701-1705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya Ramalingam Iyer ◽  
Nicholas Rhind

Cell-cycle checkpoints are generally global in nature: one unattached kinetochore prevents the segregation of all chromosomes; stalled replication forks inhibit late origin firing throughout the genome. A potential exception to this rule is the regulation of replication fork progression by the S-phase DNA damage checkpoint. In this case, it is possible that the checkpoint is global, and it slows all replication forks in the genome. However, it is also possible that the checkpoint acts locally at sites of DNA damage, and only slows those forks that encounter DNA damage. Whether the checkpoint regulates forks globally or locally has important mechanistic implications for how replication forks deal with damaged DNA during S-phase.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Mason ◽  
Yuen-Ling Chan ◽  
Ralph W. Weichselbaum ◽  
Douglas K. Bishop

ABSTRACTThe central recombination enzyme RAD51 has been implicated in replication fork processing and restart in response to replication stress. Here, we use a separation-of-function allele of RAD51 that retains DNA binding, but not strand exchange activity, to reveal mechanistic aspects of RAD51’s roles in the response to replication stress. We find that cells lacking RAD51 strand exchange activity protect replication forks from MRE11-dependent degradation, as expected from previous studies. Unexpectedly we find that RAD51’s strand exchange activity is not required to convert stalled forks to a form that can be degraded by DNA2. Such conversion was shown previously to require replication fork reversal, supporting a model in which fork reversal depends on a non-enzymatic function of RAD51. We also show RAD51 promotes replication restart by both strand exchange-dependent and strand exchange-independent mechanisms.


2006 ◽  
Vol 26 (22) ◽  
pp. 8396-8409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Herzberg ◽  
Vladimir I. Bashkirov ◽  
Michael Rolfsmeier ◽  
Edwin Haghnazari ◽  
W. Hayes McDonald ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT DNA damage checkpoints coordinate the cellular response to genotoxic stress and arrest the cell cycle in response to DNA damage and replication fork stalling. Homologous recombination is a ubiquitous pathway for the repair of DNA double-stranded breaks and other checkpoint-inducing lesions. Moreover, homologous recombination is involved in postreplicative tolerance of DNA damage and the recovery of DNA replication after replication fork stalling. Here, we show that the phosphorylation on serines 2, 8, and 14 (S2,8,14) of the Rad55 protein is specifically required for survival as well as for normal growth under genome-wide genotoxic stress. Rad55 is a Rad51 paralog in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and functions in the assembly of the Rad51 filament, a central intermediate in recombinational DNA repair. Phosphorylation-defective rad55-S2,8,14A mutants display a very slow traversal of S phase under DNA-damaging conditions, which is likely due to the slower recovery of stalled replication forks or the slower repair of replication-associated DNA damage. These results suggest that Rad55-S2,8,14 phosphorylation activates recombinational repair, allowing for faster recovery after genotoxic stress.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinxing Lyu ◽  
Kai-Hang Lei ◽  
Olga Shiva ◽  
Megan Chastain ◽  
Peter Chi ◽  
...  

AbstractDegradation and collapse of stalled replication forks are main sources of genome instability, yet the molecular mechanism for protecting forks from degradation/collapse is not well understood. Here, we report that human CST (CTC1-STN1-TEN1), a single-stranded DNA binding protein complex, localizes at stalled forks and protects forks from MRE11 nuclease degradation upon replication perturbation. CST deficiency causes nascent strand degradation, ssDNA accumulation after fork stalling, and delay in replication recovery, leading to cellular sensitivity to fork stalling agents. Purified CST binds to 5’ overhangs and directly blocks MRE11 degradation in vitro, and the DNA binding ability of CST is required for blocking MRE11-mediated nascent strand degradation. Finally, we uncover that CST and BRCA2 form non-overlapping foci upon fork stalling, and CST inactivation is synthetic with BRCA2 deficiency in inducing genome instability. Collectively, our findings identify CST as an important fork protector to preserve genome integrity under replication perturbation.


Genetics ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 166 (4) ◽  
pp. 1631-1640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet R Donaldson ◽  
Charmain T Courcelle ◽  
Justin Courcelle

Abstract Ultraviolet light induces DNA lesions that block the progression of the replication machinery. Several models speculate that the resumption of replication following disruption by UV-induced DNA damage requires regression of the nascent DNA or migration of the replication machinery away from the blocking lesion to allow repair or bypass of the lesion to occur. Both RuvAB and RecG catalyze branch migration of three- and four-stranded DNA junctions in vitro and are proposed to catalyze fork regression in vivo. To examine this possibility, we characterized the recovery of DNA synthesis in ruvAB and recG mutants. We found that in the absence of either RecG or RuvAB, arrested replication forks are maintained and DNA synthesis is resumed with kinetics that are similar to those in wild-type cells. The data presented here indicate that RecG- or RuvAB-catalyzed fork regression is not essential for DNA synthesis to resume following arrest by UV-induced DNA damage in vivo.


1999 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 6076-6084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme C. M. Smith ◽  
Fabrizio d’adda di Fagagna ◽  
Nicholas D. Lakin ◽  
Stephen P. Jackson

ABSTRACT The activation of the cysteine proteases with aspartate specificity, termed caspases, is of fundamental importance for the execution of programmed cell death. These proteases are highly specific in their action and activate or inhibit a variety of key protein molecules in the cell. Here, we study the effect of apoptosis on the integrity of two proteins that have critical roles in DNA damage signalling, cell cycle checkpoint controls, and genome maintenance—the product of the gene defective in ataxia telangiectasia, ATM, and the related protein ATR. We find that ATM but not ATR is specifically cleaved in cells induced to undergo apoptosis by a variety of stimuli. We establish that ATM cleavage in vivo is dependent on caspases, reveal that ATM is an efficient substrate for caspase 3 but not caspase 6 in vitro, and show that the in vitro caspase 3 cleavage pattern mirrors that in cells undergoing apoptosis. Strikingly, apoptotic cleavage of ATM in vivo abrogates its protein kinase activity against p53 but has no apparent effect on the DNA binding properties of ATM. These data suggest that the cleavage of ATM during apoptosis generates a kinase-inactive protein that acts, through its DNA binding ability, in a trans-dominant-negative fashion to prevent DNA repair and DNA damage signalling.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levon Halabelian ◽  
Mani Ravichandran ◽  
Yanjun Li ◽  
Hong Zheng ◽  
L. Aravind ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTHMCES can covalently crosslink to abasic sites in single-stranded DNA at stalled replication forks to prevent genome instability. Here, we report crystal structures of the HMCES SRAP domain in complex with DNA-damage substrates, revealing interactions with both single-stranded and duplex segments of 3’ overhang DNA. HMCES may also bind gapped DNA and 5’ overhang structures to align single stranded abasic sites for crosslinking to the conserved Cys2 of its catalytic triad.


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