Endonuclease G: a role for the enzyme in recombination and cellular proliferation.

Our earlier studies had suggested that endonuclease G (EndoG), a member of the evolutionarily conserved DNA/RNA nonspecific betabetaalpha-Me-finger nuclease family, functioned in the a sequence-mediated segment inversion observed during herpes simplex virus 1 replication. To test this hypothesis, we used RNA interference to reduce the level of EndoG in mammalian cells in culture. Reduction of EndoG produced a small but statistically significant decrease in a sequence-mediated recombination, suggesting that EndoG does play a role in this process. We also observed that reduction in the level of EndoG resulted in a deficiency in cell proliferation. Cells with a reduced level of EndoG also showed changes in cell distribution in the cell cycle, producing a pattern characteristic of cells that have been arrested in the G(2) phase. These findings suggest that EndoG is required for normal cellular proliferation.