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BRC‐1 acts in the inter‐sister pathway of meiotic double‐strand break repair
Author(s) -
Adamo Adele,
Montemauri Paolo,
Silva Nicola,
Ward Jordan D,
Boulton Simon J,
La Volpe Adriana
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/sj.embor.7401167
Subject(s) - meiosis , genetics , sister , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , political science , law
The breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility protein BRCA1 is evolutionarily conserved and functions in DNA double‐strand break (DSB) repair through homologous recombination, but its role in meiosis is poorly understood. By using genetic analysis, we investigated the role of the Caenorhabditis elegans BRCA1 orthologue ( brc‐1 ) during meiotic prophase. The null mutant in the brc‐1 gene is viable, fertile and shows the wild‐type complement of six bivalents in most diakinetic nuclei, which is indicative of successful crossover recombination. However, brc‐1 mutants show an abnormal increase in apoptosis and RAD‐51 foci at pachytene that are abolished by loss of spo‐11 function, suggesting a defect in meiosis rather than during premeiotic DNA replication. In genetic backgrounds in which chiasma formation is abrogated, such as him‐14/MSH4 and syp‐2 , loss of brc‐1 leads to chromosome fragmentation suggesting that brc‐1 is dispensable for crossing over but essential for DSB repair through inter‐sister recombination.