Nucleotide excision repair genes from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ERCC2: cDNA cloning and molecular characterization of a human nucleotide excision repair gene with high homology to yeast RAD3

Human ERCC2 genomic clones give efficient, stable correction of the nucleotide excision repair defect in UV5 Chinese hamster ovary cells. One clone having a breakpoint just 5' of classical promoter elements corrects only transiently, implicating further flanking sequences in stable gene expression. The nucleotide sequences of a cDNA clone and genomic flanking regions were determined. The ERCC2 translated amino acid sequence has 52% identity (73% homology) with the yeast nucleotide excision repair protein RAD3. RAD3 is essential for cell viability and encodes a protein that is a single-stranded DNA dependent ATPase and an ATP dependent helicase. The similarity of ERCC2 and RAD3 suggests a role for ERCC2 in both cell viability and DNA repair and provides the first insight into the biochemical function of a mammalian nucleotide excision repair gene.

Identification of nucleotide-excision-repair genes on human chromosomes 2 and 13 by functional complementation in hamster-human hybrids

The CHO UV-sensitive mutants UV24 and UV135 (complementation groups 3 and 5, respectively) are defective in nucleotide excision repair. After fusing each mutant with human lymphocytes, resistant hybrid clones showing genetic complementation were isolated by repeated exposure to UV radiation. Using a combination of isozyme markers, DNA probes, and cytogenetic methods to analyze the primary hybrids and their subclones, correction of the repair defect was shown to be correlated with the presence of a specific human chromosome in each case. Chromosome 2 corrected UV24, and the gene responsible was designated ERCC3. Line UV135 was corrected by human chromosome 13 and the gene designated ERCC5. The UV-sensitive mouse cell line, Q31, was shown not to complement UV135 and thus appears to be mutated in the same genetic locus (homologous to ERCC5) as UV135. Breakage of complementing chromosomes with retention of the genes correcting repair defects allowed the following provisional assignments: regional localization of ERCC5 to 13q14-q34, exclusion of ERCC3 from the region of chromosome 2 distal to p23, and relief of the ambiguity of ACP1 assignment (2p23 or 2p25) to 2p23 proximal to MDH1.

Overexpression of the RAD2 gene of S. cerevisiae: identification and preliminary characterization of Rad2 protein

The cloned RAD2 gene of S. cerevisiae was tailored into regulatable expression vectors for overexpression of Rad2 protein in E. coli and in yeast. In E. coli both Rad2/beta-galactosidase fusion protein and native Rad2 protein are insoluble, but are extractable with 1% Sarkosyl. In yeast some of the overexpressed native Rad2 protein is also insoluble; however, soluble protein is readily detected by immunoblotting with Rad2-specific antibodies. All forms of the protein detected in transformed or untransformed yeast cells and the insoluble species in E. coli migrate in denaturing polyacrylamide gels with an apparent molecular weight considerably larger than the size predicted from the sequence of the RAD2 coding region. This property is not the result of post-translational glycosylation detectable by binding of concanavalin A, or of phosphorylation of the protein. Overexpression of the RAD2 gene is toxic to yeast. Transformed yeast cells grow much more slowly than untransformed controls and when yeast transformants are serially propagated cultures show considerably colony heterogeneity and concomitant selection for rapidly growing variants which express less Rad2 protein. Antisera raised against Rad2/beta-galactosidase fusion protein expressed in E. coli do not cross-react with Rad1, Rad3 or Rad10 protein in crude extracts of yeast, nor with purified E. coli UvrA, UvrB or UvrC proteins.