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Stalled DNA replication fork restart after stress as orchestrated by ATR kinase, BLM helicase, and structure-specific nucleases enables replication, cell survival, and genome stability. Here we unveil human exonuclease V (EXO5) as an ATR-regulated DNA structure-specific nuclease and BLM partner for replication fork restart. We find that elevated EXO5 in tumors correlates with increased mutation loads and poor patient survival, suggesting that EXO5 upregulation has oncogenic potential. Structural, mechanistic, and mutational analyses of EXO5 and EXO5-DNA complexes reveal a single-stranded DNA binding channel with an adjacent ATR phosphorylation motif (T88Q89) that regulates EXO5 nuclease activity and BLM binding identified by mass spectrometric analysis. EXO5 phospho-mimetic mutant rescues the restart defect from EXO5 depletion that decreases fork progression, DNA damage repair, and cell survival. EXO5 depletion furthermore rescues survival of FANCA-deficient cells and indicates EXO5 functions epistatically with SMARCAL1 and BLM. Thus, an EXO5 axis connects ATR and BLM in directing replication fork restart., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Why mammalian cells possess multiple DNA glycosylases (DGs) with overlapping substrate ranges for repairing oxidatively damaged bases via the base excision repair (BER) pathway is a long-standing question. To determine the biological role of these DGs, null animal models have been generated. Here, we report the generation and characterization of mice lacking Neil2 (Nei-like 2). As in mice deficient in each of the other four oxidized base-specific DGs (OGG1, NTH1, NEIL1, and NEIL3), Neil2-null mice show no overt phenotype. However, middle-aged to old Neil2-null mice show the accumulation of oxidative genomic damage, mostly in the transcribed regions. Immuno-pulldown analysis from wild-type (WT) mouse tissue showed the association of NEIL2 with RNA polymerase II, along with Cockayne syndrome group B protein, TFIIH, and other BER proteins. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis from mouse tissue showed co-occupancy of NEIL2 and RNA polymerase II only on the transcribed genes, consistent with our earlier in vitro findings on NEIL2's role in transcription-coupled BER. This study provides the first in vivo evidence of genomic region-specific repair in mammals. Furthermore, telomere loss and genomic instability were observed at a higher frequency in embryonic fibroblasts from Neil2-null mice than from the WT. Moreover, Neil2-null mice are much more responsive to inflammatory agents than WT mice. Taken together, our results underscore the importance of NEIL2 in protecting mammals from the development of various pathologies that are linked to genomic instability and/or inflammation. NEIL2 is thus likely to play an important role in long term genomic maintenance, particularly in long-lived mammals such as humans., (© 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.)

The protein products of several rad checkpoint genes of Schizosaccharomyces pombe (rad1+, rad3+, rad9+, rad17+, rad26+, and hus1+) play crucial roles in sensing changes in DNA structure, and several function in the maintenance of telomeres. When the mammalian homologue of S. pombe Rad9 was inactivated, increases in chromosome end-to-end associations and frequency of telomere loss were observed. This telomere instability correlated with enhanced S- and G2-phase-specific cell killing, delayed kinetics of γ-H2AX focus appearance and disappearance, and reduced chromosomal repair after ionizing radiation (IR) exposure, suggesting that Rad9 plays a role in cell cycle phase-specific DNA damage repair. Furthermore, mammalian Rad9 interacted with Rad51, and inactivation of mammalian Rad9 also resulted in decreased homologous recombinational (HR) repair, which occurs predominantly in the S and G2 phases of the cell cycle. Together, these findings provide evidence of roles for mammalian Rad9 in telomere stability and HR repair as a mechanism for promoting cell survival after IR exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]