Chronic Oxidative DNA Damage Due to DNA Repair Defects Causes Chromosomal Instability in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Oxidative DNA damage is likely to be involved in the etiology of cancer and is thought to accelerate tumorigenesis via increased mutation rates. However, the majority of malignant cells acquire a specific type of genomic instability characterized by large-scale genomic rearrangements, defined as chromosomal instability (CIN). The molecular mechanisms underlying CIN are largely unknown. We utilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system to delineate the relationship between genotoxic stress and CIN. It was found that elevated levels of chronic, unrepaired oxidative DNA damage cause chromosomal aberrations at remarkably high frequencies under both selective and non-selective growth conditions. In this system, exceeding the cellular capacity to appropriately manage oxidative DNA damage results in a “gain of CIN” phenotype and leads to profound karyotypic diversification. These results illustrate a novel mechanism for genome destabilization, which is likely to be relevant to human carcinogenesis. Keywords: CGH-array Genomic DNA from each of 9 strains was competitively hybridized to DNA from the parent diploid strain (Cy3/green). Gains of genomic segments in the survivors were detected as continuous regions of positive Log2 Red:Green ratios, while losses were detected as negative Log2 Red:Green ratios.