The mechanism of untargeted mutagenesis in UV-irradiated yeast

Abstract

The SOS error-prone repair hypothesis proposes that untargeted and targeted mutations in E. coli both result from the inhibition of polymerase functions that normally maintain fidelity, and that this is a necessary precondition for translesion synthesis. Using mating experiments with excision deficient strains of Baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we find that up to 40% of cyc1–91 revertants induced by UV are untargeted, showing that a reduction in fidelity is also found in irradiated cells of this organism. We are, however, unable to detect the induction or activation of any diffusible factor capable of inhibiting fidelity, and therefore suggest that untargeted and targeted mutations are the consequence of largely different processes. We propose that these observations are best explained in terms of a limited fidelity model. Untargeted mutations are thought to result from the limited capacity of processes which normally maintain fidelity, which are active during replication on both irradiated and unirradiated templates. Even moderate UV fluences saturate this capacity, leading to competition for the limited resource. Targeted mutations are believed to result from the limited, though far from negligible, capacity of lesions like pyrimidine dimers to form Watson-Crick base pairs.