Regulation of mitotic homeologous recombination in yeast. Functions of mismatch repair and nucleotide excision repair genes

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae homologs of the bacterial mismatch repair proteins MutS and MutL correct replication errors and prevent recombination between homeologous (nonidentical) sequences. Previously, we demonstrated that Msh2p, Msh3p, and Pms1p regulate recombination between 91% identical inverted repeats, and here use the same substrates to show that Mlh1p and Msh6p have important antirecombination roles. In addition, substrates containing defined types of mismatches (base-base mismatches; 1-, 4-, or 12-nt insertion/deletion loops; or 18-nt palindromes) were used to examine recognition of these mismatches in mitotic recombination intermediates. Msh2p was required for recognition of all types of mismatches, whereas Msh6p recognized only base-base mismatches and 1-nt insertion/deletion loops. Msh3p was involved in recognition of the palindrome and all loops, but also had an unexpected antirecombination role when the potential heteroduplex contained only base-base mismatches. In contrast to their similar antimutator roles, Pms1p consistently inhibited recombination to a lesser degree than did Msh2p. In addition to the yeast MutS and MutL homologs, the exonuclease Exo1p and the nucleotide excision repair proteins Rad1p and Rad10p were found to have roles in inhibiting recombination between mismatched substrates.