Mutations are used to explain evolution but also cause cancer. Biologists have discovered conditions for multiple mutations. Can we therefore infer that evolution via mutations is more likely? or that enhanced mutations will cause faster species degradation and extinction?
Biologists describe mechanism promoting multiple DNA mutations
DNA mutations—long known to fuel cancer as well as evolutionary changes in a living organism—had been thought to be rare events that occur randomly throughout the genome.
However, recent studies have shown that cancer development frequently involves the formation of multiple mutations that arise simultaneously and in close proximity to each other. . . .Anna Malkova, associate professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, notes that the DNA repair pathway, known as break-induced replication (BIR), can promote clusters of DNA mutations.
“Previously, we have shown that double-strand DNA breaks, which can result from oxidation, ionizing radiation and replication errors, can be repaired by BIR,” says Malkova.
“During BIR, one broken DNA end is paired with an identical DNA sequence on another chromosome and initiates an unusual type of replication, which proceeds as a migrating bubble and is associated with the accumulation of large amounts of single-strand DNA,” she says.
In the Cell Reports study, researchers subjected yeast cells undergoing BIR to alkylating (cancer cell-killing agents) damage. “We found that the single-stranded DNA regions that accumulate during BIR are susceptible to damage that leads to the formation of mutation clusters,” explains Cynthia Sakofsky, postdoctoral fellow at the UI and one of two co-first authors on the paper. “These clusters are similar to those found in human cancer,” she says.
Importantly, say the researchers, the paper provides a mechanism to potentially explain how genetic changes form in human cancers. Thus, it will be critical for future research to determine whether BIR can form clustered mutations that lead to cancer in humans.
Paper: Break-induced replication is a source of mutation clusters underlying kataegis.
Sakofsky et al. Cell Rep. 2014 Jun 12;7(5):1640-8. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2014.04.053. Epub 2014 May 29.
Abstract
Clusters of simultaneous multiple mutations can be a source of rapid change during carcinogenesis and evolution. Such mutation clusters have been recently shown to originate from DNA damage within long single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) formed at resected double-strand breaks and dysfunctional replication forks. Here, we identify double-strand break (DSB)-induced replication (BIR) as another powerful source of mutation clusters that formed in nearly half of wild-type yeast cells undergoing BIR in the presence of alkylating damage. Clustered mutations were primarily formed along the track of DNA synthesis and were frequently associated with additional breakage and rearrangements. Moreover, the base specificity, strand coordination, and strand bias of the mutation spectrum were consistent with mutations arising from damage in persistent ssDNA stretches within unconventional replication intermediates. Altogether, these features closely resemble kataegic events in cancers, suggesting that replication intermediates during BIR may be the most prominent source of mutation clusters across species.