Genetics. Published Articles Ahead of Print: February 1, 2008, Copyright © 2008
doi:10.1534/genetics.107.082818


A more recent version of this article appeared on February 1, 2008.


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Dpb2p, a Noncatalytic Subunit of DNA Polymerase {epsilon}, Contributes to the Fidelity of DNA Replication in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

1 Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences,
2 Braun Laboratories, California Institute of Technology

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: iwonaf{at}ibb.waw.pl.

Submitted on October 3, 2007
Revised on November 19, 2007
Accepted on 19 November 2007


Abstract

Most replicases are multisubunit complexes. DNA polymerase epsilon from Saccharomyces cerevisiae is comprised of four subunits: Pol2p, Dpb2p, Dpb3p, and Dpb4p. Pol2p and Dpb2p are essential. In order to investigate a possible role for the Dpb2p subunit in maintaining the fidelity of DNA replication, we isolated temperature-sensitive mutants in the DPB2 gene. Several of the newly isolated dpb2 alleles are strong mutators, exhibiting mutation rates equivalent to pol2 mutants defective in the 3' -> 5' proofreading exonuclease (pol2-4) or to mutants defective in mismatch repair (msh6). The dpb2 pol2-4 and dpb2 msh6 double mutants show a synergistic increase in mutation rate, indicating that the mutations arising in the dpb2 mutants are due to DNA replication errors normally corrected by mismatch repair. The dpb2 mutations decrease the affinity of Dpb2p for the Pol2p subunit as measured by two hybrid analysis, providing a possible mechanistic explanation for the loss of high fidelity synthesis. Our results show that DNA polymerase subunits other than those housing the DNA polymerase and 3' -> 5' exonuclease are essential in controlling the level of spontaneous mutagenesis and genetic stability in yeast cells.

Key Words: <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it>, DNA polymerase epsilon, DPB2 (YPR175W), POL2 (YNL262W), fidelity of DNA replication