| 1. |
- Beck, Halfdan, et al.
(författare)
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Regulators of cyclin-dependent kinases are crucial for maintaining genome integrity in S phase
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Cell Biology. - : Rockefeller University Press. - 0021-9525 .- 1540-8140. ; 188:5, s. 629-638
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Maintenance of genome integrity is of critical importance to cells. To identify key regulators of genomic integrity, we screened a human cell line with a kinome small interfering RNA library. WEE1, a major regulator of mitotic entry, and CHK1 were among the genes identified. Both kinases are important negative regulators of CDK1 and -2. Strikingly, WEE1 depletion rapidly induced DNA damage in S phase in newly replicated DNA, which was accompanied by a marked increase in single-stranded DNA. This DNA damage is dependent on CDK1 and -2 as well as the replication proteins MCM2 and CDT1 but not CDC25A. Conversely, DNA damage after CHK1 inhibition is highly dependent on CDC25A. Furthermore, the inferior proliferation of CHK1-depleted cells is improved substantially by codepletion of CDC25A. We conclude that the mitotic kinase WEE1 and CHK1 jointly maintain balanced cellular control of Cdk activity during normal DNA replication, which is crucial to prevent the generation of harmful DNA lesions during replication.
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| 2. |
- Groth, Petra, et al.
(författare)
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Methylated DNA Causes a Physical Block to Replication Forks Independently of Damage Signalling, O-6-Methylguanine or DNA Single-Strand Breaks and Results in DNA Damage
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Molecular Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-2836 .- 1089-8638. ; 402:1, s. 70-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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 O-6-methylguanine (O6meG)-DNA methyltransferase protein, responsible for removing the most toxic alkylation, O6meG, did not affect replication elongation following exposure to N-methyl-M-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine. This demonstrates that O6meG lesions are efficiently bypassed in mammalian cells. In addition, we find that MMS-induced gamma H2AX 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.
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