Site-specific initiation of DNA replication in metazoan chromosomes and the role of nuclear organization.

We have asked whether or not Xenopus eggs or egg extracts, which have previously been shown to replicate essentially any DNA molecule, will preferentially utilize a known mammalian OBR. Our results reveal that Xenopus egg extracts can preferentially initiate DNA replication at sites chosen in vivo by the hamster cell, provided that the DNA substrate is presented to the extract in the form of a nucleus rather than bare DNA. Thus, site-specific initiation of DNA replication in metazoan cell chromosomes appears to be determined by nuclear organization as well as DNA sequence. We have also considered whether or not BPV, which was previously reported to regulate its copy number through negative as well as positive cis-acting sequences, provides a suitable paradigm for cellular origins. The BPV genome was found to contain cis-acting sequences that can suppress DNA replication driven by a lytic virus such as PyV. However, this suppression did not require any BPV protein, did not limit PyV origin activity to one initiation event per S phase, and did not affect BPV origin activity. These results, together with data from other laboratories, strongly suggest that BPV is simply a slow-replicating version of SV40 and PyV and therefore is not an appropriate model to explain how initiation of cellular DNA replication is limited to once per cell cycle.