RAD51 interacts with the evolutionarily conserved BRC motifs in the human breast cancer susceptibility gene brca2.

Recent work has shown that the murine BRCA2 tumor suppressor protein interacts with the murine RAD51 protein. This interaction suggests that BRCA2 participates in DNA repair. Residues 3196-3232 of the murine BRCA2 protein were shown to be involved in this interaction. Here, we report the detailed mapping of additional domains that are involved in interactions between the human homologs of these two proteins. Through yeast two-hybrid and biochemical assays, we demonstrate that the RAD51 protein interacts specifically with the eight evolutionarily conserved BRC motifs encoded in exon 11 of brca2 and with a similar motif found in a Caenorhabditis elegans hypothetical protein. Deletion analysis demonstrates that residues 98-339 of human RAD51 interact with the 59-residue minimal region that is conserved in all BRC motifs. These data suggest that the BRC repeats function to bind RAD51.