Histone deposition plays an active role in recombination-dependent replication to balance genome2 stability upon replication stress

Abstract

Replication stress poses a serious threat to genome and epigenome stability. Recombination-Dependent-Replication (RDR) ensures DNA synthesis resumption from arrested forks. Despite the identification of chromatin restoration pathways during DNA repair processes, crosstalk coupling RDR and chromatin assembly is largely unexplored. Here, we addressed the contribution of chromatin assembly to replication stress in fission yeast. We expressed a mutated histone (H3-H113D) to genetically impair replication-dependent chromatin assembly by destabilizing (H3-H4)2 tetramer. We established that DNA synthesis-dependent histone deposition is required for the completion of RDR. Histone deposition prevents joint-molecules from Rqh1-dependent disassembly, a crosstalk contributing to cell survival upon replication stress but channeling RDR towards deleterious events. Asf1 and CAF-1 act in RDR and CAF-1 recruitment to DNA synthesis associated to RDR requires the HR factor Rad52. Our data establish that CAF-1 counteracts Rqh1 activity at sites of replication stress by promoting repair synthesis-coupled histone deposition. These results demonstrate that histone deposition plays an active role in fine-tuning RDR, a benefit counterbalanced by stabilizing at-risk joint molecules for genome stability.