Recruitment of DNA Damage Checkpoint Proteins to Damage in Transcribed and Nontranscribed Sequences

Abstract

We developed a chromatin immunoprecipitation method for analyzing the binding of repair and checkpoint proteins to DNA base lesions in any region of the human genome. Using this method, we investigated the recruitment of DNA damage checkpoint proteins RPA, Rad9, and ATR to base damage induced by UV and acetoxyacetylaminofluorene in transcribed and nontranscribed regions in wild-type and excision repair-deficient human cells in G₁ and S phases of the cell cycle. We find that all 3 damage sensors tested assemble at the site or in the vicinity of damage in the absence of DNA replication or repair and that transcription enhances recruitment of checkpoint proteins to the damage site. Furthermore, we find that UV irradiation of human cells defective in excision repair leads to phosphorylation of Chk1 kinase in both G₁ and S phase of the cell cycle, suggesting that primary DNA lesions as well as stalled transcription complexes may act as signals to initiate the DNA damage checkpoint response.

This work was supported by NIH grant GM32833.

We thank Tadayoshi Bessho, Keziban Unsal-Kacmaz, and Laura Lindsey-Boltz for useful discussions and critical comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to Mats Ljungman for sharing unpublished data.