Low doses of ultraviolet radiation and oxidative damage induce dramatic accumulation of mitochondrial DNA replication intermediates, fork regression, and replication initiation shift.

Mitochondrial DNA is prone to damage by various intrinsic as well as environmental stressors. DNA damage can in turn cause problems for replication, resulting in replication stalling and double-strand breaks, which are suspected to be the leading cause of pathological mtDNA rearrangements. In this study, we exposed cells to subtle levels of oxidative stress or UV radiation and followed their effects on mtDNA maintenance. Although the damage did not influence mtDNA copy number, we detected a massive accumulation of RNA:DNA hybrid-containing replication intermediates, followed by an increase in cruciform DNA molecules, as well as in bidirectional replication initiation outside of the main replication origin, OH. Our results suggest that mitochondria maintain two different types of replication as an adaptation to different cellular environments; the RNA:DNA hybrid-involving replication mode maintains mtDNA integrity in tissues with low oxidative stress, and the potentially more error tolerant conventional strand-coupled replication operates when stress is high.

Chk1 inhibits replication factory activation but allows dormant origin firing in existing factories.

Replication origins are licensed by loading MCM2-7 hexamers before entry into S phase. However, only ∼10% of licensed origins are normally used in S phase, with the others remaining dormant. When fork progression is inhibited, dormant origins initiate nearby to ensure that all of the DNA is eventually replicated. In apparent contrast, replicative stress activates ataxia telangiectasia and rad-3-related (ATR) and Chk1 checkpoint kinases that inhibit origin firing. In this study, we show that at low levels of replication stress, ATR/Chk1 predominantly suppresses origin initiation by inhibiting the activation of new replication factories, thereby reducing the number of active factories. At the same time, inhibition of replication fork progression allows dormant origins to initiate within existing replication factories. The inhibition of new factory activation by ATR/Chk1 therefore redirects replication toward active factories where forks are inhibited and away from regions that have yet to start replication. This minimizes the deleterious consequences of fork stalling and prevents similar problems from arising in unreplicated regions of the genome.

Replication of damaged DNA in vitro is blocked by p53.

The tumor suppressor protein p53 may have other roles and functions in addition to its well-documented ability to serve as a sequence-specific transcriptional activator in response to DNA damage. We showed previously that p53 can block the replication of polyomavirus origin-containing DNA (Py ori-DNA) in vitro when p53 binding sites are present on the late side of the Py ori. Here we have both further extended these observations and have also examined whether p53 might be able to bind directly to and inhibit the replication of damaged DNA. We found that p53 strongly inhibits replication of gamma-irradiated Py ori-DNA and such inhibition requires both the central DNA binding domain and the extreme C-terminus of the p53 protein. An endogenous p53 binding site lies within the Py origin and is required for the ability of p53 to block initiation of replication from gamma-irradiated Py ori-DNA, suggesting the possibility of DNA looping caused by p53 binding both non-specifically to sites of DNA damage and specifically to the endogenous site in the polyomavirus origin. Our results thus suggest the possibility that under some circumstances p53 might serve as a direct regulator of DNA replication and suggest as well an additional function for cooperation between its two autonomous DNA binding domains.

Radiation down-regulates replication origin activity throughout the S phase in mammalian cells.

An asynchronous culture of mammalian cells responds acutely to ionizing radiation by inhibiting the overall rate of DNA replication by approximately 50% for a period of several hours, presumably to allow time to repair DNA damage. At low and moderate doses, this S phase damage-sensing (SDS) pathway appears to function primarily at the level of individual origins of replication, with only a modest inhibition of chain elongation per se. We have shown previously that the majority of the inhibition observed in an asynchronous culture can be accounted for by late G1cells that were within 2-3 h of entering the S period at the time of irradiation and which then fail to do so. A much smaller effect was observed on the overall rate of replication in cells that had already entered the S phase. This raised the question whether origins of replication that are activated within S phase per se are inhibited in response to ionizing radiation. Here we have used a two-dimensional gel replicon mapping strategy to show that cells with an intact SDS pathway completely down-regulate initiation in both early- and late-firing rDNA origins in human cells. We also show that initiation in mid- or late-firing rDNA origins is not inhibited in cells from patients with ataxia telangiectasia, confirming the suggestion that these individuals lack the SDS pathway.

Blocking rolling circle replication with a UV lesion creates a deletion hotspot.

UV light irradiation increases genetic instability by causing mutations and deletions. The mechanism of UV-induced rearrangements was investigated making use of deletion-prone plasmids. Chimeric plasmids carrying pBR322 and M13 replication origins undergo deletions that join the M13 replication origin to a random nucleotide. A restriction fragment was UV irradiated, introduced into such a hybrid plasmid and deletions formed at the M13 origin were analysed. In most of the deletant molecules, the M13 replication nick site was linked to a nucleotide in the irradiated fragment, showing that UV lesions are deletion hotspots. These deletions were independent of the UvrABC excision repair proteins, suggesting that the deletogenic structure is the lesion itself and not a repair intermediate. They were not found in the absence of M13 replication, indicating that they result from the encounter of the M13 replication fork with the UV lesion. Furthermore, UV-induced deletions occurred independently of pBR322 replication. We conclude that, in contrast to pBR322 replication forks, M13 replication forks blocked by UV lesions are deletion prone. We propose that the deletion-prone properties of a UV-arrested polymerase depend on the associated helicase.

Photosensitized formation of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine and DNA strand breakage by a cationic meso-substituted porphyrin.

Cationic porphyrins, known to have a high affinity for DNA, are useful tools with which to probe a variety of interactions with DNA. In this study we have examined both DNA strand scission and oxidative DNA base damage, measured by 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) formation, using a photoactivated cis-dicationic porphyrin. The data demonstrated a dose-dependent formation for each type of DNA damage. Inhibition of strand scission and 8-OHdG formation with the singlet oxygen scavenger 1,3-diphenylisobenzofuran and with MgCl2 and no apparent effect by D2O suggests that a singlet oxygen mechanism generated in close proximity to the DNA may be responsible for the damage. However, a nearly complete inhibition of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine formation in 75% D2O and the substantial enhancement of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine formation in a helium atmosphere by photoactivated porphyrin rules out singlet oxygen as a primary mechanism for this process. These data indicate that distinct mechanisms lead to 8-OHdG formation and strand scission activity.