Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P16104 (H2AX)
 3,930 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Most human somatic cells can undergo only a limited number of population doublings in vitro. This exhaustion of proliferative potential, called senescence, can be triggered when telomeres--the ends of linear chromosomes-cannot fulfil their normal protective functions. Here we show that senescent human fibroblasts display molecular markers characteristic of cells bearing DNA double-strand breaks. These markers include nuclear foci of phosphorylated histone H2AX and their co-localization with DNA repair and DNA damage checkpoint factors such as 53BP1, MDC1 and NBS1. We also show that senescent cells contain activated forms of the DNA damage checkpoint kinases CHK1 and CHK2. Furthermore, by chromatin immunoprecipitation and whole-genome scanning approaches, we show that the chromosome ends of senescent cells directly contribute to the DNA damage response, and that uncapped telomeres directly associate with many, but not all, DNA damage response proteins. Finally, we show that inactivation of DNA damage checkpoint kinases in senescent cells can restore cell-cycle progression into S phase. Thus, we propose that telomere-initiated senescence reflects a DNA damage checkpoint response that is activated with a direct contribution from dysfunctional telomeres.
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PMID:A DNA damage checkpoint response in telomere-initiated senescence. 1460 68

The autosomal gene DAZL is a member of a family of genes (DAZL, DAZ, BOULE), all of which contain a consensus RNA binding domain and are expressed in germ cells. Adult male and female mice null for Dazl lack gametes. In order to define more precisely the developmental stages in germ cells that require Dazl expression, the patterns of germ cell loss in immature male and female wild-type (+/+, WT) and Dazl -/- (DazlKO) mice were analysed. In females, loss of germ cells occurred during fetal life and was coincident with progression of cells through meiotic prophase. In males, testes were recovered from WT and DazlKO males obtained before and during the first wave of spermatogenesis (days 2-19). Mitotically active germ cells were present up to and including day 19. Functional differentiation of spermatogonia associated with detection of c-kit positive cells did not depend upon expression of Dazl. RBMY-positive cells (A, intermediate, B spermatogonia, zygotene and preleptotene spermatocytes) were reduced in DazlKO compared with WT testes. Staining of cell squashes from day 19 testes with anti-gamma-H2AX and anti-SCP3 antibodies showed that germ cells from DazlKO males were unable to progress beyond the leptotene stage of meiotic prophase I. It was concluded that in the absence of Dazl, germ cells can complete mitosis, and embark on functional differentiation but that, in both sexes, progression through meiotic prophase requires this RNA binding protein.
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PMID:Absence of mDazl produces a final block on germ cell development at meiosis. 1461 31

Eukaryotic DNA is organized into nucleosomes and higher order chromatin structure, which plays an important role in the regulation of many nuclear processes including DNA repair. Non-homologous end-joining, the major pathway for repairing DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in mammalian cells, is mediated by a set of proteins including DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK). DNA-PK is comprised of a large catalytic subunit, DNA-PKcs, and its regulatory subunit, Ku. Current models predict that Ku binds to the ends of broken DNA and DNA-PKcs is recruited to form the active kinase complex. Here we show that DNA-PK can be activated by nucleosomes through the ability of Ku to bind to the ends of nucleosomal DNA, and that the activated DNA-PK is capable of phosphorylating H2AX within the nucleosomes. Histone acetylation has little effect on the steps of Ku binding to nucleosomes and subsequent activation of DNA-PKcs. However, acetylation largely enhances the phosphorylation of H2AX by DNA-PK, and this acetylation effect is observed when H2AX exists in the context of nucleosomes but not in a free form. These results suggest that the phosphorylation of H2AX, known to be important for DSB repair, can be regulated by acetylation and may provide a mechanistic basis on which to understand the recent observations that histone acetylation critically functions in repairing DNA DSBs.
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PMID:DNA-PK is activated by nucleosomes and phosphorylates H2AX within the nucleosomes in an acetylation-dependent manner. 1462 15

Expression of adenovirus E1A deregulates cell proliferation to facilitate viral DNA replication, prompting the initiation of apoptosis signaled primarily through proapoptotic BAK in productively infected cells. We demonstrate here that in uninfected cells, BAK is complexed with the anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family member Myeloid Cell Leukemia 1 (MCL-1). E1A expression during infection resulted in the specific down-regulation of MCL-1 through destabilization of the protein and loss of the mRNA. Upon loss of the MCL-1-BAK complex, BAK complexed with either BAX in proapoptotic E1B mutant adenovirus-infected cells, or with the adenovirus BCL-2 homolog E1B 19K in cells infected with the wild-type virus in which apoptosis is inhibited. Loss of MCL-1 was required to initiate the apoptotic pathway in infected cells as restoration of MCL-1 expression rescued infected cells from E1A-induced apoptosis. Analogous to E1A expression, DNA damage down-regulates MCL-1, and adenovirus infection resulted in the accumulation of phosphorylated H2AX and ataxia-telangiectasia mutant protein (ATM), hallmarks of DNA double-strand breaks. Thus, MCL-1 may function by maintaining BAK in an inactive state, and the loss of MCL-1 upon activation of the DNA damage response, perhaps through replication stress induced in virus infected cells, may be required to initiate the apoptotic response.
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PMID:DNA damage response and MCL-1 destruction initiate apoptosis in adenovirus-infected cells. 1463 75

Severe levels of hypoxia (oxygen concentrations of less that 0.02%) have been shown to induce a rapid S-phase arrest. The mechanism behind hypoxia-induced S-phase arrest is unclear, we show here that it was not mediated by a shortage of nucleosides and was not dependent on p53, p21 or Hif 1alpha status. The drugs aphidicolin and hydroxyurea both induce rapid replication arrest and have been used throughout the literature to study the ATR-mediated response to stalled replication. We have shown previously that hypoxia induces ATR-dependent phosphorylation of p53, Chk1 and histone H2AX. Using comet-assays to detect DNA-damage we found that both aphidicolin and hydroxyurea induced significant levels of DNA-damage while hypoxia did not. Here we show that like aphidicolin and hydroxyurea, hypoxia induces phosphorylation of Nbs1 at serine 343 and Rad17 serine 645. Hypoxia-dependent phosphorylation of Nbs1 and Rad17 was ATM-independent and therefore likely to be a result of the ATR kinase activity. In contrast, p53 was phosphorylated differentially in response to the three treatments considered here. p53 was phosphorylated at serine 15 in response to all three treatments but was only phosphorylated at serine 20 in response to the drug treatments. We propose that treatment with either aphidicolin or hydroxyurea leads to not only replication arrest but also DNA-damage and therefore both ATM and ATR-mediated signaling. In contrast replication arrest induced by severe hypoxia is sensed exclusively through ATR, with ATM only having a role to play after re-oxygenation.
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PMID:Comparison of hypoxia-induced replication arrest with hydroxyurea and aphidicolin-induced arrest. 1464 37

To better understand the different cellular responses to replication fork pausing versus blockage, early DNA damage response markers were compared after treatment of cultured mammalian cells with agents that either inhibit DNA polymerase activity (hydroxyurea (HU) or aphidicolin) or selectively induce S-phase DNA damage responses (the DNA alkylating agents, methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) and adozelesin). These agents were compared for their relative abilities to induce phosphorylation of Chk1, H2AX, and replication protein A (RPA), and intra-nuclear focalization of gamma-H2AX and RPA. Treatment by aphidicolin and HU resulted in phosphorylation of Chk1, while HU, but not aphidicolin, induced focalization of gamma-H2AX and RPA. Surprisingly, pre-treatment with aphidicolin to stop replication fork progression, did not abrogate HU-induced gamma-H2AX and RPA focalization. This suggests that HU may act on the replication fork machinery directly, such that fork progression is not required to trigger these responses. The DNA-damaging fork-blocking agents, adozelesin and MMS, both induced phosphorylation and focalization of H2AX and RPA. Unlike adozelesin and HU, the pattern of MMS-induced RPA focalization did not match the BUdR incorporation pattern and was not blocked by aphidicolin, suggesting that MMS-induced damage is not replication fork-dependent. In support of this, MMS was the only reagent used that did not induce phosphorylation of Chk1. These results indicate that induction of DNA damage checkpoint responses due to adozelesin is both replication fork and fork progression dependent, induction by HU is replication fork dependent but progression independent, while induction by MMS is independent of both replication forks and fork progression.
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PMID:Comparison of checkpoint responses triggered by DNA polymerase inhibition versus DNA damaging agents. 1464 38

The mouse meiotic mutant Mei1 was isolated in a screen for infertile mice descended from chemically mutagenized embryonic stem cells. Homozygotes of both sexes are sterile due to meiotic arrest caused by defects in chromosome synapsis. Notably, RAD51 protein does not load onto Mei1 mutant meiotic chromosomes, suggesting that there is a defect in either recombinational repair or the production of double-strand breaks (DSBs) that require such repair. Here, we show that treatment of mutant males with cisplatin restores RAD51 loading, suggesting that mutant spermatocytes have intact recombinational repair mechanisms. Levels of histone H2AX phosphorylation (gammaH2AX) at leptonema are significantly reduced compared with wild-type controls but comparable to that seen in animals deficient for SPO11, the molecule required for catalyzing DSB formation during meiosis. These observations provide evidence that genetically programmed DSB induction is defective in Mei1 leptotene spermatocytes. We also report the positional cloning of Mei1, which encodes a product without significant homology to any known protein. Expressed almost exclusively in gonads, Mei1 has no apparent homologs in yeast, worms, or flies. However, Mei1 orthologs are present in the genomes of mammals, chickens, and zebrafish. Thus, Mei1 is required for vertebrate meiosis. To our knowledge, Mei1 is the first meiosis-specific mutation identified by forward genetic approaches in mammals.
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PMID:Positional cloning and characterization of Mei1, a vertebrate-specific gene required for normal meiotic chromosome synapsis in mice. 1467 27

Cell cycle checkpoints induced by DNA damage play an integral role in preservation of genomic stability by allowing cells to limit the propagation of deleterious mutations. The retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (RB) is crucial for the maintenance of the DNA damage checkpoint function because it elicits cell cycle arrest in response to a variety of genotoxic stresses. Although sporadic loss of RB is characteristic of most cancers and results in the bypass of the DNA damage checkpoint, the consequence of RB loss upon chemotherapeutic responsiveness has been largely uninvestigated. Here, we employed a conditional knockout approach to ablate RB in adult fibroblasts. This system enabled us to examine the DNA damage response of adult cells following acute RB deletion. Using this system, we demonstrated that loss of RB disrupted the DNA damage checkpoint elicited by either cisplatin or camptothecin exposure. Strikingly, this bypass was not associated with enhanced repair, but rather the accumulation of phosphorylated H2AX (gammaH2AX) foci, which indicate DNA double-strand breaks. The formation of gammaH2AX foci was due to ongoing replication following chemotherapeutic treatment in the RB-deficient cells. Additionally, peak gammaH2AX accumulation occurred in S-phase cells undergoing DNA replication in the presence of damage, and these gammaH2AX foci co-localized with replication foci. These results demonstrate that acute RB loss abrogates DNA damage-induced cell cycle arrest to induce gammaH2AX foci formation. Thus, secondary genetic lesions induced by RB loss have implications for the chemotherapeutic response and the development of genetic instability.
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PMID:RB signaling prevents replication-dependent DNA double-strand breaks following genotoxic insult. 1470 40

The histone H2A variant, H2AX, is a core component of chromatin that is phosphorylated in chromatin flanking DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). Here, we summarize H2AX functions and outline a specific "anchoring" model, that can explain the translocation prone phenotype of H2AX-deficient and H2AX/p53-deficient mice. We also discuss how this model of H2AX function could account for some aspects of the genomic instability and cancer prone human phenotypes associated with Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS), Ataxia Telangiectasia Like Disorder (ATLD), and Bloom's Syndrome (BS).
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PMID:H2AX may function as an anchor to hold broken chromosomal DNA ends in close proximity. 1471 78

Mammalian TopBP1 is a BRCT domain-containing protein whose function in mitotic cells is linked to replication and DNA damage checkpoint. Here, we study its possible role during meiosis in mice. TopBP1 foci are abundant during early prophase I and localize mainly to histone gamma-H2AX-positive domains, where DNA double-strand breaks (required to initiate recombination) occur. Strikingly, TopBP1 showed a pattern almost identical to that of ATR, a PI3K-like kinase involved in mitotic DNA damage checkpoint. In the synapsis-defective Fkbp6(-/-) mouse, TopBP1 heavily stains unsynapsed regions of chromosomes. We also tested whether Schizosaccharomyces pombe Cut5 (the TopBP1 homologue) plays a role in the meiotic recombination checkpoint, like spRad3, the ATR homologue. Indeed, we found that a cut5 mutation suppresses the checkpoint-dependent meiotic delay of a meiotic recombination defective mutant, indicating a direct role of the Cut5 protein in the meiotic checkpoint. Our findings suggest that ATR and TopBP1 monitor meiotic recombination and are required for activation of the meiotic recombination checkpoint.
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PMID:TopBP1 and ATR colocalization at meiotic chromosomes: role of TopBP1/Cut5 in the meiotic recombination checkpoint. 1471 68


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