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RESEARCH COMMUNICATION
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2128, USA
| Abstract |
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[Keywords: Telomere; DNA damage; telomerase; chromosome fusion; plant]
Received May 17, 2005; revised version accepted July 19, 2005.
Here we explore the role of ATM and ATR at telomeres in Arabidopsis thaliana, a higher eukaryote that tolerates disruption of both of these genes. We find that while neither ATM nor ATR is individually required for telomere length homeostasis, chromosome end protection is impaired in atm atr mutants. Our data further indicate that ATM is involved in protecting chromosome ends in cells with short telomeres, while ATR is required for maintenance of telomeric DNA.
| Results and Discussion |
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We gauged the status of chromosome end protection in atm and atr mutants by examining mitotic figures from dissected pistils. Bridged anaphase chromosomes are a hallmark of dysfunctional telomeres, reflecting the formation of dicentric chromosomes that arise from fusion of deprotected chromosome ends (Hande et al. 1999
; Artandi et al. 2000
). Among >400 anaphases examined from consecutive generations of atm and atr single mutants, no bridged chromosomes were detected (Table 1). In contrast, 42/826 (5.1%) of the anaphases from atm atr double mutants showed bridged chromosomes (Table 1; Fig. 1B). To determine whether the bridges involved telomeres, we assayed for fusion of chromosome ends using a PCR approach that exploits the unique sequences abutting Arabidopsis telomeres (Heacock et al. 2004
). PCR products are amplified when telomeres form covalent associations with each other (Fig. 1C). As expected, no products were detected with DNA samples from wild type or atm or atr mutants (Table 1; Fig. 1D). However, some rare, but persistent, PCR products were obtained in DNA samples from atm atr double mutants (Table 1; Fig. 1D). The few PCR products we could clone and sequence displayed telomere-to-telomere fusions involving very short telomere tracts of
500 bp (data not shown). This architecture is reminiscent of chromosome fusion junctions amplified from late-generation telomerase mutants, where unprotected telomeres are subjected to exonucleolytic attack prior to fusion (Heacock et al. 2004
). We conclude that while bulk telomere length is wild type, a fraction of chromosome ends in atm atr mutants become deprotected and recruited into end-joining reactions.
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500 bp per plant generation in both settings (Fig. 2A; data not shown).
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To investigate the molecular basis for the accelerated onset of cell proliferation defects, we performed cytogenetic analysis. As expected, there was no evidence for genome instability in the first five generations of tert, or in the first four generations of atm tert mutants (Table 1; data not shown). However,
20% of the anaphase nuclei from the most severely affected G5 atm tert plants harbored bridged chromosomes compared with <1% in G5 tert (Table 1; Fig. 4A). This high frequency of anaphase bridges in G5 atm tert is comparable to G7-G8 tert Arabidopsis (Riha et al. 2001
). Thus, unlike the gradual onset of genome instability that occurs over multiple generations (G4-G8) in tert (Riha et al. 2001
), atm tert mutants abruptly destabilized their genomes in a single generation.
While telomere fusion PCR products were generated from DNA samples derived from G4 and G5 atm tert mutants, their abundance was remarkably low and similar to the signals obtained with G5 tert mutants, which display no genome instability (Table 1; Fig. 4B; data not shown). In contrast, DNA from G8 tert plants with a comparable number of anaphase bridges to G5 atm tert mutants gave rise to a large number of telomere fusion PCR products (Fig. 4B). The low abundance of fusion PCR products from atm tert mutants could reflect fusion events distinct from those observed in tert. For example, chromosome fusions involving long telomeres or sister chromatids would form extensive palindromes that would not be amplified in our PCR assay. Likewise, we would miss telomeres subjected to catastrophic shortening prior to fusion if the binding site for the subtelomeric primer were eliminated. Our initial attempts to detect fusion products using primers located further upstream in the subtelomeric regions were unsuccessful. Therefore, extensive nucleolytic processing of the ends remains a possibility. Finally, we would also fail to detect fusions involving internal double-strand breaks. Such fusions could result from a checkpoint defect that would allow additional rounds of breakage-fusion-breakage cycles, and as a consequence, increase the probability of secondary fusion events involving internal double-strand breaks.
Mice lacking the RNA component of telomerase and ATM display a phenotype similar to atm tert Arabidopsis, with an early onset of telomere dysfunction without accelerated telomere shortening (Qi et al. 2003
). Similarly, the telomeres of tel1 tlc1 yeast mutants shorten at the same rate as tlc1 mutants, but double mutants show dramatic increases in the frequency of telomere fusions to artificial double-strand breaks induced by HO endonuclease (Chan and Blackburn 2003
) and in the frequency of chromosomal rearrangements (Myung et al. 2001
). Thus, a role for ATM in stabilizing the genomes of cells with shortened telomeres is conserved.
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ATR has been shown to function in resolving stalled replication forks (Cha and Kleckner 2002
). Consequently, it is conceivable that the replication of highly repetitive telomeric DNA is most efficient in the presence of ATR. However, in atr Arabidopsis, telomere length is unperturbed, implying that replication of the duplex region of the telomere tract is not compromised by ATR deficiency. An alternative, more speculative model is that ATR is physically associated with the chromosome terminus and acts in telomere maintenance by prohibiting illegitimate exonuclease attack or by controlling processing of the telomeric C-strand (Fig. 5). As for ATM, telomere association of ATR could proceed through interactions with Mre11 (Takata et al. 2005
). Alternatively, since RPA recruits ATR to stalled replication forks (Zou and Elledge 2003
), RPA may facilitate ATR localization to telomeres. In support of this idea, RPA mutation leads to progressive telomere shortening (Smith et al. 2000
; Schramke et al. 2004
). In yeast, Mec1p is known to promote loading of the single-strand telomere-binding protein Cdc13p (Takata et al. 2005
), whose functions include protection of the G-rich telomeric DNA strand. By analogy, at higher eukaryotic telomeres, ATR may be involved in the recruitment of Pot1, the presumed ortholog of Cdc13p (Smogorzewska and de Lange 2004
). We speculate that the telomere maintenance defect we observe in plants lacking both TERT and ATR reflects a combined failure of telomerase to maintain the telomeric G-rich strand and ATR to protect against inappropriate nuclease digestion.
In summary, these data provide the first insight into the role of ATR at higher eukaryotic telomeres. Further analysis of ATR and ATM interactions in the genetically tractable Arabidopsis model should help to clarify the contribution of these proteins to chromosome end protection and telomere maintenance.
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| Materials and methods |
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The SALK T-DNA lines (Alonso et al. 2003
) SALK_006953 and SALK_032841, that respectively carry an insertion in intron 64 of ATM (At3g48190) and in exon 10 of ATR (At5g40820), have been described previously as atm-2 (Garcia et al. 2003
) and atr-2 (Culligan et al. 2004
). The tert mutant and its phenotypes have also been described previously (Riha et al. 2001
). All crosses were made between plants heterozygous for the desired mutations. Double-heterozygous F1 plants were identified by genotyping and then self-propagated to F2 to obtain double- and single-homozygous mutants and wild-type siblings. These plants (G1) were self-propagated for several generations. Two independent lines, coming from two individual F2 plants, were obtained for each genotype. For genotyping, genomic DNA was extracted from flower buds using a high-throughput method (Xin et al. 2003
). Plants were grown at 23°C in an environmental chamber under a 16 h light/8 h dark photoperiod.
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Four to seven fully grown rosette leaves from 6-wk-old individual plants were ground in liquid nitrogen, resuspended in 3 mL of DNA extraction buffer (2% hexadecyltrimethyl-ammonium bromide, 1.4 mM NaCl, 20 mM EDTA, 100 mM Tris-Cl at pH 8.0, 10 mg/L RNAse A), and incubated for 1 h at 65°C. After phenol/chloroform extraction, genomic DNA was precipitated in isopropanol and resuspended in TE buffer. DNA (3 µg) was digested overnight at 65°C with Tru1I (Fermentas). Products were resolved on a 1% agarose gel. Telomeric signals were detected by Southern-blot using a 5'-32P-labeled (TTTAGGG)4 single-strand probe.
Cytogenetics experiments and telomere fusion PCR
DAPI (4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole)-stained chromosome spreads were prepared from pistils as described (Martínez-Zapater and Salinas 1998
). Telomere fusion PCR experiments including PCR conditions, cloning, sequencing, and program analysis were performed as described (Heacock et al. 2004
). Primers were 3L-F1 (AGACGAGGAGACTAG GAACG), 3L-1 (CATAATTCTCACAGCAGCACCGTAGA), 3R-R1 (GT ATGGATGCCGGGAAAGTTGCAGACAA), 4R-F1 (CTTATCAACAT CAGCTGGTC), 5L-1 (AGGTAGAGTGAACCTAACACTTGGA), and 5R-1 (CAGGACGTGTGAAACAGAAACTACA).
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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Article and publication are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1333805.
1 Corresponding author.
E-MAIL dshippen{at}tamu.edu; FAX (979) 845-9274. ![]()
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