Heat effects on DNA repair after ionising radiation: hyperthermia commonly increases the number of non-repaired double-strand breaks and structural rearrangements

After ionising radiation double-strand breaks (dsb) are lethal if not repaired or misrepaired. Cell killing is greatly enhanced by hyperthermia and it is questioned here whether heat not only affects dsb repair capacity but also fidelity in a chromosomal context. dsb repair experiments were designed so as to mainly score non-homologous end joining, while homologous recombination was largely precluded. Human male G0 fibroblasts were either preheated (45°C, 20 min) or not before X-irradiation. dsb induction and repair were measured by conventional gel electrophoresis and an assay combining restriction digestion using a rare cutting enzyme (NotI) and Southern hybridisation, which detects large chromosomal rearrangements (>100 kb). dsb induction rate in an X-chromosomal NotI fragment was 4.8 × 10–3 dsb/Gy/Mb. Similar values were found for the genome overall and also when cells were preheated. After 50 Gy, fibroblasts were competent to largely restore the original restriction fragment size. Five per cent of dsb remained non-rejoined and 14% were misrejoined. Correct restitution of restriction fragments occurred preferably during the first hour but continued at a slow rate for 12–16 h. In addition, dsb appeared to misrejoin throughout the entire repair period. After hyperthermia the fractions of non-rejoined and misrejoined dsb were similarly increased to 13 and 51%, respectively. It is suggested that heat increases the probability of dsb being incorrectly rejoined but it is not likely to interfere with one dsb repair pathway in particular.

Rad52 forms DNA repair and recombination centers during S phase

Maintenance of genomic integrity and stable transmission of genetic information depend on a number of DNA repair processes. Failure to faithfully perform these processes can result in genetic alterations and subsequent development of cancer and other genetic diseases. In the eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae, homologous recombination is the major pathway for repairing DNA double-strand breaks. The key role played by Rad52 in this pathway has been attributed to its ability to seek out and mediate annealing of homologous DNA strands. In this study, we find that S. cerevisiae Rad52 fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) is fully functional in DNA repair and recombination. After induction of DNA double-strand breaks by γ-irradiation, meiosis, or the HO endonuclease, Rad52-GFP relocalizes from a diffuse nuclear distribution to distinct foci. Interestingly, Rad52 foci are formed almost exclusively during the S phase of mitotic cells, consistent with coordination between recombinational repair and DNA replication. This notion is further strengthened by the dramatic increase in the frequency of Rad52 focus formation observed in a pol12-100 replication mutant and a mec1 DNA damage checkpoint mutant. Furthermore, our data indicate that each Rad52 focus represents a center of recombinational repair capable of processing multiple DNA lesions.

The tight linkage between DNA replication and double-strand break repair in bacteriophage T4

Double-strand break (DSB) repair and DNA replication are tightly linked in the life cycle of bacteriophage T4. Indeed, the major mode of phage DNA replication depends on recombination proteins and can be stimulated by DSBs. DSB-stimulated DNA replication is dramatically demonstrated when T4 infects cells carrying two plasmids that share homology. A DSB on one plasmid triggered extensive replication of the second plasmid, providing a useful model for T4 recombination-dependent replication (RDR). This system also provides a view of DSB repair in T4-infected cells and revealed that the DSB repair products had been replicated in their entirety by the T4 replication machinery. We analyzed the detailed structure of these products, which do not fit the simple predictions of any of three models for DSB repair. We also present evidence that the T4 RDR system functions to restart stalled or inactivated replication forks. First, we review experiments involving antitumor drug-stabilized topoisomerase cleavage complexes. The results suggest that forks blocked at cleavage complexes are resolved by recombinational repair, likely involving RDR. Second, we show here that the presence of a T4 replication origin on one plasmid substantially stimulated recombination events between it and a homologous second plasmid that did not contain a T4 origin. Furthermore, replication of the second plasmid was increased when the first plasmid contained the T4 origin. Our interpretation is that origin-initiated forks become inactivated at some frequency during replication of the first plasmid and are then restarted via RDR on the second plasmid.