CRISPR screens identify genomic ribonucleotides as a source of PARP-trapping lesions.

The observation that BRCA1- and BRCA2-deficient cells are sensitive to inhibitors of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) has spurred the development of cancer therapies that use these inhibitors to target deficiencies in homologous recombination. The cytotoxicity of PARP inhibitors depends on PARP trapping, the formation of non-covalent protein-DNA adducts composed of inhibited PARP1 bound to DNA lesions of unclear origins. To address the nature of such lesions and the cellular consequences of PARP trapping, we undertook three CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed palindromic repeats) screens to identify genes and pathways that mediate cellular resistance to olaparib, a clinically approved PARP inhibitor. Here we present a high-confidence set of 73 genes, which when mutated cause increased sensitivity to PARP inhibitors. In addition to an expected enrichment for genes related to homologous recombination, we discovered that mutations in all three genes encoding ribonuclease H2 sensitized cells to PARP inhibition. We establish that the underlying cause of the PARP-inhibitor hypersensitivity of cells deficient in ribonuclease H2 is impaired ribonucleotide excision repair. Embedded ribonucleotides, which are abundant in the genome of cells deficient in ribonucleotide excision repair, are substrates for cleavage by topoisomerase 1, resulting in PARP-trapping lesions that impede DNA replication and endanger genome integrity. We conclude that genomic ribonucleotides are a hitherto unappreciated source of PARP-trapping DNA lesions, and that the frequent deletion of RNASEH2B in metastatic prostate cancer and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia could provide an opportunity to exploit these findings therapeutically

Tracking replication enzymology in vivo by genome-wide mapping of ribonucleotide incorporation

Ribonucleotides are frequently incorporated into DNA during eukaryotic replication. Here we map the genome-wide distribution of these ribonucleotides as markers of replication enzymology in budding yeast, using a new 5′-DNA end-mapping method, Hydrolytic End Sequencing. HydEn-Seq of DNA from ribonucleotide excision repair-deficient strains reveals replicase- and strand-specific patterns of ribonucleotides in the nuclear genome. These patterns support the role of DNA polymerases α and δ in lagging strand replication and of DNA polymerase ε in leading strand replication. They identify replication origins, termination zones and variations in ribonucleotide incorporation frequency across the genome that exceed three orders of magnitude. HydEn-Seq also reveals strand-specific 5′-DNA ends at mitochondrial replication origins, suggesting unidirectional replication of a circular genome. Given the conservation of enzymes that incorporate and process ribonucleotides in DNA, HydEn-Seq can be used to track replication enzymology in other organisms