Polarity and bypass of DNA heterology during branch migration of holliday junctions by human RAD54, BLM, and RECQ1 proteins

Olga M. Mazina, Matthew J. Rossi, Julianna S. Deakyne, Fei Huang, Alexander V. Mazin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Several proteins have been shown to catalyze branch migration (BM) of the Holliday junction, a key intermediate in DNA repair and recombination. Here, using joint molecules made by human RAD51 or Escherichia coli RecA, we find that the polarity of the displaced ssDNA strand of the joint molecules defines the polarity of BM of RAD54, BLM, RECQ1, and RuvAB. Our results demonstrate that RAD54, BLM, and RECQ1 promote BMpreferentially in the 3′→5′ direction, whereas RuvAB drives it in the 5′→3′ direction relative to the displaced ssDNA strand. Our data indicate that the helicase activity of BM proteins does not play a role in the heterology bypass. Thus, RAD54 that lacks helicase activity is more efficient in DNA heterology bypass than BLM or REQ1 helicases. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the BLM helicase and BM activities require different protein stoichiometries, indicating that different complexes, monomers and multimers, respectively, are responsible for these two activities. These results defineBMas a mechanistically distinct activity of DNA translocating proteins, which may serve an important function in DNA repair and recombination.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)11820-11832
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Biological Chemistry
Volume287
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 6 2012
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Biochemistry
  • Cell Biology

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