Repair of rDNA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: RAD4-independent strand-specific nucleotide excision repair of RNA polymerase I transcribed genes.

Removal of UV-induced pyrimidine dimers from the individual strands of the rDNA locus in Saccharomyces cerevisiae was studied. Yeast rDNA, that is transcribed by RNA polymerase I(RNA pol I), is repaired efficiently, slightly strand-specific and independently of RAD26, which has been implicated in transcription-coupled repair of the RNA pol II transcribed RPB2 gene. No repair of rDNA is observed in rad1,2,3 and 14 mutants, demonstrating that dimer removal from this highly repetitive DNA is accomplished by nucleotide excision repair (NER). In rad7 and rad16 mutants, which are specifically deficient in repair of non-transcribed DNA, there is a clear preferential repair of the transcribed strand of rDNA, indicating that strand-specific and therefore probably transcription-coupled repair of RNA pol I transcribed genes does exist in yeast. Unexpectedly, the transcribed but not the non-transcribed strand of rDNA can be repaired in rad4 mutants, which seem otherwise completely NER-deficient.