Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access published online on November 14, 2008
Nucleic Acids Research, doi:10.1093/nar/gkn912
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Genome integrity, repair and replication |
Analysis of re-replication from deregulated origin licensing by DNA fiber spreading
1Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and 2Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7260, USA
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 919 843 3867; Fax: +1 919 966 2852; Email: jean_cook{at}med.unc.edu
Received August 21, 2008. Revised October 22, 2008. Accepted October 29, 2008.
A major challenge each human cell-division cycle is to ensure that DNA replication origins do not initiate more than once, a phenomenon known as re-replication. Acute deregulation of replication control ultimately causes extensive DNA damage, cell-cycle checkpoint activation and cell death whereas moderate deregulation promotes genome instability and tumorigenesis. In the absence of detectable increases in cellular DNA content however, it has been difficult to directly demonstrate re-replication or to determine if the ability to re-replicate is restricted to a particular cell-cycle phase. Using an adaptation of DNA fiber spreading we report the direct detection of re-replication on single DNA molecules from human chromosomes. Using this method we demonstrate substantial re-replication within 1 h of S phase entry in cells overproducing the replication factor, Cdt1. Moreover, a comparison of the HeLa cancer cell line to untransformed fibroblasts suggests that HeLa cells produce replication signals consistent with low-level re-replication in otherwise unperturbed cell cycles. Re-replication after depletion of the Cdt1 inhibitor, geminin, in an untransformed fibroblast cell line is undetectable by standard assays but readily quantifiable by DNA fiber spreading analysis. Direct evaluation of re-replicated DNA molecules will promote increased understanding of events that promote or perturb genome stability.
The authors wish it to be known that, in their opinion, the first two authors should be regarded as joint First Authors