Mitotic gene conversion tracts associated with repair of a defined double-strand break in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Mitotic recombination between homologous chromosomes can lead to loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH), which is an important contributor to human disease. In the current study, a defined double-strand break (DSB) on chromosome IV was used to initiate LOH in a yeast strain with sequence-diverged chromosomes. Associated gene conversion tracts, which reflect the repair of mismatches formed when diverged chromosomes exchange single strands, were mapped using microarrays. LOH events reflected two broken chromosomes, one of which was repaired as a crossover and the other as a noncrossover. Gene conversion tracts associated with individual crossover and noncrossover events were similar in size and position, with half of the tracts unexpectedly mapping to only a single side of the initiating break. Although the molecular features of DSB-initiated events generally agree with those predicted by current models of homologous recombination, there were unexpected complexities in associated gene conversion tracts.