Our findings predict that through control of CtIP levels, the C terminus of Mre11 regulates the ability of cells to repair DSBs by homologous recombination. We therefore determined the impact on DSB repair of Mre11 alleles that disrupt CDK2 interaction and cause low CTIP levels. First, we examined repair of a chromosomal DSB by the homologous recombination pathway using a single inte¬grated copy of the DR-GFP reporter plasmid41. This construct con¬tains a GFP gene inactivated by insertion of the I-SceI endonuclease recognition site (Fig. 5a). GFP is reconstructed only after the I-SceI–induced DSB is repaired by homologous recombination, during which an adjacent GFP fragment is used as a template to restore missing sequences. We observed that Mre11C54 and Mre11ATLD1 each caused significant defects relative to control (P < 0.05 for both) (Fig. 5a). Even the short 13-residue deletion caused a similar defect (P < 0.05 for both) (Fig. 5a).
To address the possibility that disruption of the Mre11 C terminus causes an homologous recombination defect for reasons other than CtIP deficiency, we complemented CtIP through forced overexpres¬sion. We transfected Mre11WT or Mre11ATLD1 cells containing the DR-GFP reporter with exogenous murine CtIP using the pSport6-CMV expression plasmid. Indeed, CtIP expression caused a significant increase in homologous recombination in Mre11ATLD1 cells but did not increase homologous recombination above normal in cells expressing wild-type Mre11 (P < 0.05) (Fig. 5b).