Mre11 suppresses replication stress and gene amplification proficiency

Gene amplification, copy-number increases of particular genes and surrounding genomic segments, promotes cancer progression and acquired therapy resistance. Thus, understanding genetic traits that confer gene amplification proficiency is important. The primary step for gene amplification is spontaneous DNA rearrangements initiated by DNA breaks. Here we show that mammalian cells became gene amplification-proficient when we knocked down Mre11/Rad50/Nbs1 (MRN) complex, a multifunctional complex that guards the genome from DNA breaks. Cells with reduced Mre11 experienced severe replication stress, with marked increases of single-stranded breaks followed by double-stranded breaks during DNA replication. Such breaks underlay for the increase in spontaneous gene amplification. Other traits associated with replication stress, such as impaired intra-S phase checkpoint and global transcriptional changes in DNA metabolism genes also contributed to gene amplification proficiency. Our results define Mre11 deficiency as a cause of replication stress and gene amplification proficiency and provide a candidate marker for aggressive cancer phenotypes. We sequenced four samples: 2 control, GFP-expressing samples and 2 Mre11 knockdown cells