Methylated DNA Causes a Physical Block to Replication Forks Independently of Damage Signalling, O-Methylguanine or DNA Single-Strand Breaks and Results in DNA Damage

Even though DNA alkylating agents have been used for many decades in the treatment of cancer, it remains unclear what happens when replication forks encounter alkylated DNA. Here, we used the DNA fibre assay to study the impact of alkylating agents on replication fork progression. We found that the alkylator methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) inhibits replication elongation in a manner that is dose dependent and related to the overall alkylation grade. Replication forks seem to be completely blocked as no nucleotide incorporation can be detected following 1 h of MMS treatment. A high dose of 5 mM caffeine, inhibiting most DNA damage signalling, decreases replication rates overall but does not reverse MMS-induced replication inhibition, showing that the replication block is independent of DNA damage signalling. Furthermore, the block of replication fork progression does not correlate with the level of DNA single-strand breaks. Overexpression of O⁶-methylguanine (O6meG)-DNA methyltransferase protein, responsible for removing the most toxic alkylation, O6meG, did not affect replication elongation following exposure to N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine. This demonstrates that O6meG lesions are efficiently bypassed in mammalian cells. In addition, we find that MMS-induced γH2AX foci co-localise with 53BP1 foci and newly replicated areas, suggesting that DNA double-strand breaks are formed at MMS-blocked replication forks. Altogether, our data suggest that N-alkylations formed during exposure to alkylating agents physically block replication fork elongation in mammalian cells, causing formation of replication-associated DNA lesions, likely double-strand breaks.     

The Annealing Helicase and Branch Migration Activities of Drosophila HARP

HARP (SMARCAL1, MARCAL1) is an annealing helicase that functions in the repair and restart of damaged DNA replication forks through its DNA branch migration and replication fork regression activities. HARP is conserved among metazoans. HARP from invertebrates differs by the absence of one of the two HARP-specific domain repeats found in vertebrates. The annealing helicase and branch migration activity of invertebrate HARP has not been documented. We found that HARP from Drosophila melanogaster retains the annealing helicase activity of human HARP, the ability to disrupt D-loops and to branch migrate Holliday junctions, but fails to regress model DNA replication fork structures. A comparison of human and Drosophila HARP on additional substrates revealed that both HARPs are competent in branch migrating a bidirectional replication bubble composed of either DNA:DNA or RNA:DNA hybrid. Human, but not Drosophila, HARP is also capable of regressing a replication fork structure containing a highly stable poly rG:dC hybrid. Persistent RNA:DNA hybrids in vivo can lead to replication fork arrest and genome instability. The ability of HARP to strand transfer hybrids may signify a hybrid removal function for this enzyme, in vivo.     

基于复制-转录碰撞的突变和进化意义

复制和转录机器会同时使用相同的DNA区域作为模板,因此复制和转录不可避免地以头对头或追尾方式相互碰撞。头对头碰撞和追尾碰撞均会导致复制机器停留,从而造成DNA损伤和基因组不稳定。就基因组完整性而言,头对头碰撞比追尾碰撞的后果更严重。本文回顾总结了复制-转录冲突的解决机制和进化影响。相对于前导链,滞后链上非同义（氨基酸改变）突变的发生率更高,并且滞后链上基因的高频诱变取决于转录本和基因大小,因此,较快的适应性突变发生在滞后链上。头对头基因的高度转录增加了复制过程中响应压力的突变率。无论是头对头还是追尾模式,复制-转录冲突都可能是适应性进化的驱动力。     

The Mammalian DNA Replication Elongation Checkpoint: Implication of Chk1 and Relationship with Origin Firing as Determined by Single DNA Molecule and Single Cell Analyses

The regulation of DNA replication initiation is well documented, for both unperturbed and damaged cells. The regulation of elongation, or fork velocity, however, has only recently been revealed with the advent of new techniques allowing us to view DNA replication at the single cell and single DNA molecule levels. Normally in S phase, the progression of replication forks and their stability are regulated by the ATR-Claspin-Chk1 pathway. We recently showed that replication fork velocity varies across the human genome in normal and cancer cells, but that the velocity of a given fork is positively correlated with the distance between origins on the same DNA fiber. Accordingly, in DNA replication-deficient Bloom’s syndrome cells, reduced fork velocity is associated with an increased density of replication origins. Replication elongation is also regulated in response to DNA damage. In human colon carcinoma cells treated with the topoisomerase I inhibitor camptothecin, DNA replication is inhibited both at the level of initiation and at the level of elongation through a Chk1-dependent checkpoint mechanism. Together, these new findings demonstrate that replication fork velocity (fork progression) is coordinated with inter-origin distance and that it can be actively slowed down by Chk1-dependent mechanisms in response to DNA damage. Thus, we propose that the intra-S phase checkpoint consist of at least three elements: (1) stabilization of damaged replication forks; (2) suppression of firing of late origins; and (3) arrests of normal ongoing forks to prevent further DNA lesions by replication of a damaged DNA template.     

The Double Life of UPF1 in RNA and DNA Stability Pathways

The DNA and RNA helicase UPF1 is well known for its central role in Nonsense Mediated RNA Decay (NMD), which promotes degradation of mRNAs containing premature stop codons. However, we have recently demonstrated that human UPF1 is also essential for DNA replication and S phase progression. This function appears to be independent of NMD, which is not required for cell cycle progression. UPF1 physically interacts with the replicative DNA polymerase δ and it associates with chromatin during S phase and upon DNA damage in an ATR-dependent manner. Intriguingly, the human NMD kinase SMG1 is also involved in genome stability pathways and the human NMD-factor EST1A/SMG6 is telomerase-associated and has been implicated in telomere maintenance. Here we review the recent findings, which uncovered the direct roles of UPF1 and other NMD-factors in DNA replication and genome maintenance pathways and suggest functional connections between RNA and DNA metabolism.