Mechanisms of MCM2-7 loading and initial DNA melting at near base-pair resolution
The loading and activation of the replicative helicase MCM2-7 are key events during the G1-S phase transition.In budding yeast, the origin recognition complex (ORC) binds to the conserved DNA elements A and B1 of the autonomously replicating sequence (ARS).This is followed by the consecutive loading of two MCM2-7 hetero-hexamers into a MCM2-7 double-hexamer(DH).In S-phase the MCM2-7DH is activated, resulting in two Cdc45-MCM-GINS(CMG) helicases that bidirectionally unwind DNA ahead of the replication fork.Here,we show that MCM2-7 helicase loading across the B1 element displaces ORC fromo rigins.This allows ORC binding and helicase loading at lower affinity binding sites and origins throughout the genome.Furthermore, we mapped the sites of initial DNA unwinding genome-wide and show that these sites appear near the N-terminal domains of the MCM2-7 double-hexamer in proximity of the B1 element.Finally, employing a chemical-biology approach, we establish that during helicase activation the Mcm2/5 interface acts as the DNA exit gate for single-stranded-DNA extrusion.Our work identifies that helicase loading follows a distributive mechanism, allowing for equal MCM2-7 loading across the genome and surprisingly finds that DNA unwinding initiates from the helicase N-terminal interface in proximity to the ARS B1 element. Overall design: ChIP-seq analysis of wt yeast cells, cdc6-1 and cdc46-1 mutants arrested in G2- and G1-phase to monitor pre-RC formation