Ubiquitylation of Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen and Recruitment of Human DNA Polymerase η

This study investigated the requirement for ubiquitylation of PCNA at lysine 164 during polymerase η-dependent translesion synthesis (TLS) of site-specific cis-syn cyclobutane thymine dimers (T^∧T). The in vitro assay recapitulated origin-dependent initiation, fork assembly, and semiconservative, bidirectional replication of double-stranded circular DNA substrates. A phosphocellulose column was used to fractionate HeLa cell extracts into two fractions; flow-through column fraction I (CFI) contained endogenous PCNA, RPA, ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1, and ubiquitin conjugase Rad6, and eluted column fraction II (CFII) included pol δ, pol η, and RFC. CFII supplemented with purified recombinant RPA and PCNA (wild type or K164R, in which lysine was replaced with arginine) was competent for DNA replication and TLS. K164R-PCNA complemented CFII for these activities to the same extent and efficiency as wild-type PCNA. CFII mixed with CFI (endogenous PCNA, E1, Rad6) exhibited enhanced DNA replication activity, but the same TLS efficiency determined with the purified proteins. These results demonstrate that PCNA ubiquitylation at K164 of PCNA is not required in vitro for pol η to gain access to replication complexes at forks stalled by T^∧T and to catalyze TLS across this dimer.