title: A junction branch point adjacent to a DNA backbone nick directs substrate cleavage by Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mus81-Mms4.
abstract: The DNA structure-selective endonuclease Mus81-Mms4/Eme1 incises a number of nicked joint molecule substrates in vitro. 3'-flaps are an excellent in vitro substrate for Mus81-Mms4/Eme1. Mutants in MUS81 are synthetically lethal with mutations in the 5'-flap endonuclease FEN1/Rad27 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Considering the possibility for isoenergetic interconversion between 3'- and 5'- flaps, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that Mus81-Mms4/Eme1 acts on 3'-flaps in vivo. FEN1/Rad27 prefers dually flapped substrates and cleaves in a way that allows direct ligation of the resulting nick in the product duplex. Here we test the activity of Mus81-Mms4 on dually flapped substrates and find that in contrast to FEN1/Rad27, Mus81-Mms4 activity is impaired on such substrates, resulting in cleavage products that do not allow direct religation. We conclude that Mus81-Mms4, unlike FEN1/Rad27, does not prefer dually flapped substrates and is unlikely to function as a 3'-flapase counterpart to the 5'-flapase activity of FEN1/Rad27. We further find that joint molecule incision by Mus81-Mms4 occurs in a fashion determined by the branch point, regardless of the position of an upstream duplex end. These findings underscore the significance of a nick adjacent to a branch point for Mus81-Mms4 incision.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8665, USA.
authors.forename: Kirk Tevebaugh
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Ehmsen
authors.forename: Wolf-Dietrich
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Heyer
mesh_terms: D055162:Biocatalysis; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D004720:Endonucleases / Q000378:metabolism*; D045585:Flap Endonucleases; D007700:Kinetics; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D015534:Trans-Activators; D004247:DNA; D004720:Endonucleases; D045585:Flap Endonucleases; C411624:MUS81 protein, S cerevisiae; C112337:MMS4 protein, S cerevisiae