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Large-scale changes (gross chromosomal rearrangements [GCRs]) are common in genomes, and are often associated with pathological disorders. We report here that a specific pair of nearby inverted repeats in budding yeast fuse to form a dicentric chromosome intermediate, which then rearranges to form a translocation and other GCRs. We next show that fusion of nearby inverted repeats is general; we found that many nearby inverted repeats that are present in the yeast genome also fuse, as does a pair of synthetically constructed inverted repeats. Fusion occurs between inverted repeats that are separated by several kilobases of DNA and share >20 base pairs of homology. Finally, we show that fusion of inverted repeats, surprisingly, does not require genes involved in double-strand break (DSB) repair or genes involved in other repeat recombination events. We therefore propose that fusion may occur by a DSB-independent, DNA replication-based mechanism (which we term "faulty template switching"). Fusion of nearby inverted repeats to form dicentrics may be a major cause of instability in yeast and in other organisms.

We report here that a normal budding yeast chromosome (ChrVII) can undergo remarkable cycles of chromosome instability. The events associated with cycles of instability caused a distinctive "sectoring" of colonies on selective agar plates. We found that instability initiated at any of several sites on ChrVII, and was sharply increased by the disruption of DNA replication or by defects in checkpoint controls. We studied in detail the cycles of instability associated with one particular chromosomal site (the "403 site"). This site contained multiple tRNA genes known to stall replication forks, and when deleted, the overall frequency of sectoring was reduced. Instability of the 403 site involved multiple nonallelic recombination events that led to the formation of a monocentric translocation. This translocation remained unstable, frequently undergoing either loss or recombination events linked to the translocation junction. These results suggest a model in which instability initiates at specific chromosomal sites that stall replication forks. Forks not stabilized by checkpoint proteins break and undergo multiple rounds of nonallelic recombination to form translocations. Some translocations remain unstable because they join two "incompatible" chromosomal regions. Cycles of instability of this normal yeast chromosome may be relevant to chromosome instability of mammalian fragile sites and of chromosomes in cancer cells.

Telomeres are complex structures that serve to protect chromosome ends. Here we provide evidence that in Saccharomyces cerevisiae telomeres may contain an anticheckpoint activity that prevents chromosome ends from signaling cell cycle arrest. We found that an internal tract of telomeric repeats inhibited DNA damage checkpoint signaling from adjacent double-strand breaks (DSBs); cell cycle arrest lasted 8-12 h from a normal DSB, whereas it lasted only 1-2 h from a DSB adjacent to a telomeric repeat. The shortened or abridged arrest was not the result of DNA repair, nor reduced amounts of single-stranded DNA, nor of adaptation. The molecular identity of this telomere repeat-associated anticheckpoint activity is unknown, though it is not dependent upon telomerase or telomere-proximal gene silencing. The anticheckpoint may inhibit the ATR yeast ortholog Mec1 because Rad9 and Rad53 became dephosphorylated and inactivated during the abridged arrest. The anticheckpoint acts regionally; it inhibited signaling from DNA breaks up to 0.6 kb away from the telomeric repeat but not from a DSB present on a separate chromosome. We propose that after formation of the DSB near the telomeric repeat, a mature telomere forms in 1-2 h, and the telomere then contains proteins that inhibit checkpoint signaling from nearby DNA breaks.

In eukaryotes a cell-cycle control termed a checkpoint causes arrest in the S or G2 phases when chromosomes are incompletely replicated or damaged. Previously, we showed in budding yeast that RAD9 and RAD17 are checkpoint genes required for arrest in the G2 phase after DNA damage. Here, we describe a genetic strategy that identified four additional checkpoint genes that act in two pathways. Both classes of genes are required for arrest in the G2 phase after DNA damage, and one class of genes is also required for arrest in S phase when DNA replication is incomplete. The G2-specific genes include MEC3 (for mitosis entry checkpoint), RAD9, RAD17, and RAD24. The genes common to both S phase and G2 phase pathways are MEC1 and MEC2. The MEC2 gene proves to be identical to the RAD53 gene. Checkpoint mutants were identified by their interactions with a temperature-sensitive allele of the cell division cycle gene CDC13; cdc13 mutants arrested in G2 and survived at the restrictive temperature, whereas all cdc13 checkpoint double mutants failed to arrest in G2 and died rapidly at the restrictive temperature. The cell-cycle roles of the RAD and MEC genes were examined by combination of rad and mec mutant alleles with 10 cdc mutant alleles that arrest in different stages of the cell cycle at the restrictive temperature and by the response of rad and mec mutant alleles to DNA damaging agents and to hydroxyurea, a drug that inhibits DNA replication. We conclude that the checkpoint in budding yeast consists of overlapping S-phase and G2-phase pathways that respond to incomplete DNA replication and/or DNA damage and cause arret of cells before mitosis.

We have presented the results of experiments with IS903- and IS10- derived transposons that have led us to the following conclusions: The predominant mechanism of transpositional recombination of these IS elements is a donor-suicide process that results intermolecularly in a simple IS insertion. This process presumably involves little or no replication of the IS. Intramolecular transposition by this process normally results in nonviable products. However, in the particular situation where the transpositional target lies within the transposon, viable products are obtained; these are deletions and deletion-inversions. Deletions between an IS and a target lying outside the element (the conventional "adjacent deletion") occur by a fully replicative process analogous to the formation of cointegrate molecules in intermolecular transposition. The ability of an IS to promote adjacent deletions correlates closely with its ability to fuse replicons into a cointegrate. Before transposition can occur, a complex of the transposase and both IS ends is probably formed. Requirement for such a pretranspositional complex is suggested by the effect on transpositional frequency of changing the distance between the ends. Our results do not support any of the asymmetrical models for transposition. They are, however, compatible with a modified version of the symmetric model proposed by Shapiro (1979). It is interesting to note the similarity between the structures generated by intramolecular simple transposition of an inverse transposon and the circular structures apparently formed by retroviral and copia autointegrative transposition. Shoemaker et al. (1981a,b) and Flavell and Ish-Horowicz (1983) have characterized circular molecules from retrovirally infected cells and Drosophila tissue-culture cells, respectively. The structures of some of the circular molecules resemble deletions and deletion-inversions (Fig. 3B). To our knowledge, a circular species containing two long terminal repeats (LTRs) and an adjacent deletion, which we predict could only occur by a fully replicative process given the similarity in geometry of an LTR to an IS, have not been found. It would appear, then, that the molecule containing two LTRs acts as an inverse transposon, integrating into itself. Shoemaker et al. (1981b) and Flavell and Ish-Horowicz (1983) have also suggested that these products arise from molecules containing two LTRs. We suggest that the two inside LTR ends interact in a conservative, intramolecular, simple transpositionlike event.