BRCA1 ensures genome integrity by eliminating estrogen-induced pathological topoisomerase II-DNA complexes

Women having BRCA1 germ-line mutations develop cancer in breast and ovary, estrogen-regulated tissues, with high penetrance. Binding of estrogens to the estrogen receptor (ER) transiently induces DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) by topoisomerase II (TOP2) and controls gene transcription. TOP2 resolves catenated DNA by transiently generating DSBs, TOP2-cleavage complexes (TOP2ccs), where TOP2 covalently binds to 5' ends of DSBs. TOP2 frequently fails to complete its catalysis, leading to formation of pathological TOP2ccs. We have previously shown that the endonucleolytic activity of MRE11 plays a key role in removing 5' TOP2 adducts in G₁ phase. We show here that BRCA1 promotes MRE11-mediated removal of TOP2 adducts in G₁ phase. We disrupted the BRCA1 gene in 53BP1-deficient ER-positive breast cancer and B cells. The loss of BRCA1 caused marked increases of pathological TOP2ccs in G₁ phase following exposure to etoposide, which generates pathological TOP2ccs. We conclude that BRCA1 promotes the removal of TOP2 adducts from DSB ends for subsequent nonhomologous end joining. BRCA1-deficient cells showed a decrease in etoposide-induced MRE11 foci in G₁ phase, suggesting that BRCA1 repairs pathological TOP2ccs by promoting the recruitment of MRE11 to TOP2cc sites. BRCA1 depletion also leads to the increase of unrepaired DSBs upon estrogen treatment both in vitro in G₁-arrested breast cancer cells and in vivo in epithelial cells of mouse mammary glands. BRCA1 thus plays a critical role in removing pathological TOP2ccs induced by estrogens as well as etoposide. We propose that BRCA1 suppresses tumorigenesis by removing estrogen-induced pathological TOP2ccs throughout the cell cycle.