Amphimeric mitochondrial genomes of petite mutants of yeast. II. A model for the amplification of amphimeric mitochondrial petite DNA.

A model for the recombination-directed replication and amplification of the mtDNA of amphimeric petite mutants of S. cerevisiae is proposed. Replication of an amphimeric master basic unit datA would be initiated in the inverted components a and A. The initiation of replication should be associated with the amphimeric structure of the master basic unit itself, but could be promoted by the presence of ori sequences or of sequences facilitating the initiation of replication in the inverted duplications. The amplification unit of amphimeric genomes is considered to be the double-stranded circular hetero-diamphimer datA-DaTA. Amplification of both diamphimeric strands involves an invasion of the 3' ends of the newly synthesized strands into symmetrical homologous duplex DNA regions promoting the continuation of replication, and leads to the accumulation of two ("flip" and "flop") types of multi-amphimers. We consider that this mode of amplification represents a modified rolling-circle mechanism. By analogy, we propose to call our model of amplification the "rocking-circle model". This model is likely to apply to other genomes organized as amphimeric structures.