We engineered a system in which full-length Mre11 cDNA is stably expressed from an integrated plasmid vector in cells that were Mre11cond/−. Endogenous Mre11 was subsequently removed through Cre-mediated conversion of Mre11cond/− to Mre11−/−, and independent clones with Mre11 levels similar to endogenous were pursued for further study (Supplementary Fig. 3). Mre11 expressed from cDNA successfully reconstituted levels of Rad50 and NBS1 (Fig. 1c) and supported the ability of MRN to activate the ATM kinase, as deter¬mined by relative levels of ATM autophosphorylation (Fig. 1d)15,35. Unexpectedly, despite the apparent restoration of MRN, CtIP protein levels were not restored (Fig. 1c). This suggests that the mechanisms by which Mre11 influences CtIP levels as compared to RAD50 or NBS1 levels are distinct.
The expression system fused 54 amino acids to the Mre11 C terminus (hereafter termed Mre11C54), originating from three tags (His-V5-His). To test the possibility that this large addition prevents CtIP restoration, we reconstructed the plasmid to express Mre11 fused only to a short histidine tag composed of five amino acids (Mre11C5). Indeed, Mre11C5 expression restored CtIP (Fig. 1c). Thus, we hypothesized that the C terminus of Mre11 possesses an unknown function that controls CtIP levels. We therefore examined the impact of Mre11ATLD1 C-terminal deletion. Existing ATLD1 cell lines cannot be used to study specific roles of the Mre11 C terminus, as they also harbor low levels of the entire MRN complex30,31. To circumvent this limitation, we stably expressed Mre11ATLD1 from cDNA in Mre11−/− cells (Fig. 1c). When expressed to approxi¬mately endogenous levels, Mre11ATLD1 showed a pattern iden¬tical to the impact of Mre11C54 and restored NBS1 and Rad50 levels and ATM activation without restoration of CtIP (Fig. 1c,d). Thus, the C terminus of Mre11 possesses a distinct function required to maintain normal CtIP levels.