DNA-PK promotes DNA end resection at DNA double strand breaks in G0 cells

  1. Faith C Fowler
  2. Bo-Ruei Chen
  3. Nicholas Zolnerowich
  4. Wei Wu
  5. Raphael Pavani
  6. Jacob Paiano
  7. Chelsea Peart
  8. Zulong Chen
  9. André Nussenzweig
  10. Barry P Sleckman  Is a corresponding author
  11. Jessica K Tyler  Is a corresponding author
  1. Weill Cornell Medicine, United States
  2. University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States
  3. National Cancer Institute, United States

Abstract

DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair by homologous recombination is confined to the S and G2 phases of the cell cycle partly due to 53BP1 antagonizing DNA end resection in G1 phase and non-cycling quiescent (G0) cells where DSBs are predominately repaired by non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). Unexpectedly, we uncovered extensive MRE11- and CtIP-dependent DNA end resection at DSBs in G0 murine and human cells. A whole genome CRISPR/Cas9 screen revealed the DNA-dependent kinase (DNA-PK) complex as a key factor in promoting DNA end resection in G0 cells. In agreement, depletion of FBXL12, which promotes ubiquitylation and removal of the KU70/KU80 subunits of DNA-PK from DSBs, promotes even more extensive resection in G0 cells. In contrast, a requirement for DNA-PK in promoting DNA end resection in proliferating cells at the G1 or G2 phase of the cell cycle was not observed. Our findings establish that DNA-PK uniquely promotes DNA end resection in G0, but not in G1 or G2 phase cells, which has important implications for DNA DSB repair in quiescent cells.

Data availability

Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession codesGSE186087

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Faith C Fowler

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7180-8141
  2. Bo-Ruei Chen

    Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6404-2099
  3. Nicholas Zolnerowich

    Laboratory of Genome Integrity, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Wei Wu

    Laboratory of Genome Integrity, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Raphael Pavani

    Laboratory of Genome Integrity, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Jacob Paiano

    Laboratory of Genome Integrity, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Chelsea Peart

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Zulong Chen

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. André Nussenzweig

    Laboratory of Genome Integrity, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Barry P Sleckman

    Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, United States
    For correspondence
    bps@uab.edu
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8295-4462
  11. Jessica K Tyler

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, United States
    For correspondence
    jet2021@med.cornell.edu
    Competing interests
    Jessica K Tyler, Senior editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9765-1659

Funding

NIH Office of the Director (R35 GM139816)

  • Jessica K Tyler

NIH Office of the Director (RO1 CA95641)

  • Jessica K Tyler

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Wolf-Dietrich Heyer, University of California, Davis, United States

Version history

  1. Received: October 14, 2021
  2. Preprint posted: October 21, 2021 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: May 6, 2022
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: May 16, 2022 (version 1)
  5. Version of Record published: May 20, 2022 (version 2)

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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  1. Faith C Fowler
  2. Bo-Ruei Chen
  3. Nicholas Zolnerowich
  4. Wei Wu
  5. Raphael Pavani
  6. Jacob Paiano
  7. Chelsea Peart
  8. Zulong Chen
  9. André Nussenzweig
  10. Barry P Sleckman
  11. Jessica K Tyler
(2022)
DNA-PK promotes DNA end resection at DNA double strand breaks in G0 cells
eLife 11:e74700.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74700

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