Parental histone deposition on the replicated strands promotes error-free DNA damage tolerance and regulates drug resistance

Ctf4 is a conserved replisome component with multiple roles in DNA metabolism. To investigate connections between Ctf4-mediated processes involved in drug resistance, we conducted a suppressor screen of ctf4 Δ sensitivity to the methylating agent MMS. We uncovered that mutations in Dpb3 and Dpb4 components of polymerase ε result in the development of drug resistance in ctf4 Δ via their histone-binding function. Alleviated sensitivity to MMS of the double mutants was not associated with rescue of ctf4 Δ defects in sister chromatid cohesion, replication fork architecture, or template switching, which ensures error-free replication in the presence of genotoxic stress. Strikingly, the improved viability depended on translesion synthesis (TLS) polymerase-mediated mutagenesis, which was drastically increased in ctf4 dpb3 double mutants. Importantly, mutations in Mcm2–Ctf4–Polα and Dpb3–Dpb4 axes of parental (H3–H4) 2 deposition on lagging and leading strands invariably resulted in reduced error-free DNA damage tolerance through gap filling by template switch recombination. Overall, we uncovered a chromatin-based drug resistance mechanism in which defects in parental histone transfer after replication fork passage impair error-free recombination bypass and lead to up-regulation of TLS-mediated mutagenesis and drug resistance.