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Human SMC5/6 complex promotes sister chromatid homologous recombination by recruiting the SMC1/3 cohesin complex to double‐strand breaks
Author(s) -
Potts Patrick Ryan,
Porteus Matthew H,
Yu Hongtao
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1038/sj.emboj.7601218
Subject(s) - establishment of sister chromatid cohesion , cohesin , sister chromatids , homologous recombination , chromatid , dna repair , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , homologous chromosome , homology directed repair , genetics , dna , gene , dna mismatch repair , chromosome , chromatin
The structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) family of proteins has been implicated in the repair of DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs) by homologous recombination (HR). The SMC1/3 cohesin complex is thought to promote HR by maintaining the close proximity of sister chromatids at DSBs. The SMC5/6 complex is also required for DNA repair, but the mechanism by which it accomplishes this is unclear. Here, we show that RNAi‐mediated knockdown of the SMC5/6 complex components in human cells increases the efficiency of gene targeting due to a specific requirement for hSMC5/6 in sister chromatid HR. Knockdown of the hSMC5/6 complex decreases sister chromatid HR, but does not reduce nonhomologous end‐joining (NHEJ) or intra‐chromatid, homologue, or extrachromosomal HR. The hSMC5/6 complex is itself recruited to nuclease‐induced DSBs and is required for the recruitment of cohesin to DSBs. Our results establish a mechanism by which the hSMC5/6 complex promotes DNA repair and suggest a novel strategy to improve the efficiency of gene targeting in mammalian somatic cells.