Nucleotide pools dictate the identity and frequency of ribonucleotide incorporation in mitochondrial DNA.

Autor: Anna-Karin Berglund, Clara Navarrete, Martin K M Engqvist, Emily Hoberg, Zsolt Szilagyi, Robert W Taylor, Claes M Gustafsson, Maria Falkenberg, Anders R Clausen
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS Genetics, Vol 13, Iss 2, p e1006628 (2017)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1553-7390
1553-7404
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006628
Popis: Previous work has demonstrated the presence of ribonucleotides in human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and in the present study we use a genome-wide approach to precisely map the location of these. We find that ribonucleotides are distributed evenly between the heavy- and light-strand of mtDNA. The relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides reflect that DNA polymerase γ discriminates the four ribonucleotides differentially during DNA synthesis. The observed pattern is also dependent on the mitochondrial deoxyribonucleotide (dNTP) pools and disease-causing mutations that change these pools alter both the absolute and relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides. Our analyses strongly suggest that DNA polymerase γ-dependent incorporation is the main source of ribonucleotides in mtDNA and argues against the existence of a mitochondrial ribonucleotide excision repair pathway in human cells. Furthermore, we clearly demonstrate that when dNTP pools are limiting, ribonucleotides serve as a source of building blocks to maintain DNA replication. Increased levels of embedded ribonucleotides in patient cells with disturbed nucleotide pools may contribute to a pathogenic mechanism that affects mtDNA stability and impair new rounds of mtDNA replication.
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