Strand interruptions confer strand preference during intracellular correction of a plasmid-borne mismatch in...

Site-directed mutagenesis was used to construct yeast centromere plasmids in which a strand nick or gap could be placed 5' or 3', on either strand, to a reporter gene (SUP4-o) carrying defined base mismatches. The plasmids were then transformed into yeast cells and the direction and efficiency of mismatch repair were assayed by scoring colouring of the transformant colonies. Strands that were nicked were consistently corrected more often than intact strands, but the effect was very small. However, placement of a small gap at the same positions as the nicks resulted in a marked increase in selection for the gapped strand and an enhanced efficiency of mismatch repair. Both the preference for the gapped strand and correction of the mismatch were offset by deletion of the mismatch repair gene PMS1. Together, the results suggest that strand interruptions can direct intracellular mismatch correction of plasmid-borne base mispairs in yeast.