High-resolution mapping of two types of spontaneous mitotic gene conversion events in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Gene conversions and crossovers are related products of the repair of double-stranded DNA breaks by homologous recombination. Most previous studies of mitotic gene conversion events have been restricted to measuring conversion tracts that are <5 kb. Using a genetic assay in which the lengths of v...
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Published in | Genetics (Austin) Vol. 198; no. 1; pp. 181 - 192 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Genetics Society of America
01.09.2014
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Gene conversions and crossovers are related products of the repair of double-stranded DNA breaks by homologous recombination. Most previous studies of mitotic gene conversion events have been restricted to measuring conversion tracts that are <5 kb. Using a genetic assay in which the lengths of very long gene conversion tracts can be measured, we detected two types of conversions: those with a median size of ∼6 kb and those with a median size of >50 kb. The unusually long tracts are initiated at a naturally occurring recombination hotspot formed by two inverted Ty elements. We suggest that these long gene conversion events may be generated by a mechanism (break-induced replication or repair of a double-stranded DNA gap) different from the short conversion tracts that likely reflect heteroduplex formation followed by DNA mismatch repair. Both the short and long mitotic conversion tracts are considerably longer than those observed in meiosis. Since mitotic crossovers in a diploid can result in a heterozygous recessive deleterious mutation becoming homozygous, it has been suggested that the repair of DNA breaks by mitotic recombination involves gene conversion events that are unassociated with crossing over. In contrast to this prediction, we found that ∼40% of the conversion tracts are associated with crossovers. Spontaneous mitotic crossover events in yeast are frequent enough to be an important factor in genome evolution. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Present address: Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. |
ISSN: | 1943-2631 0016-6731 1943-2631 |
DOI: | 10.1534/genetics.114.167395 |