ATR pathway is the primary pathway for activating G2/M checkpoint induction after re-replication.

DNA replication is tightly controlled to ensure accurate chromosome duplication and segregation in each cell cycle. Inactivation of Geminin, an inhibitor of origin licensing, leads to re-replication in human tumor cells within the same cell cycle and triggers a G(2)/M checkpoint. We find that the primary pathway to signal that re-replication has been detected is the ATR kinase and the Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 (9-1-1) clamp complex together with Rad17-RFC clamp loader. ATM kinase and the Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 complex do not appear to play significant roles in the checkpoint. Chk1 activation occurs at early stages, whereas Chk2 activation occurs much later. Overall we conclude that ATR/Chk1 pathway is activated at an early time point after the loss of Geminin and contributes to checkpoint arrest essential for the accumulation of re-replicated cells, whereas activation of the ATM/Chk2 pathway is a by-product of DNA re-replication at a later period.