MRE11 suppresses germline mutagenesis at meiotic double-strand breaks in mice

SPO11 forms hundreds of double-strand breaks (DSBs) to initiate meiotic recombination that is normally error-free. However, SPO11 activity can be mutagenic when one chromatid incurs closely spaced DSBs (double cuts), especially when DSBs are dysregulated by loss of the ATM kinase. De novo indels and structural variants can arise via end joining at double cuts within a single hotspot (microdeletions) or at adjacent hotspots separated by at least 30 kb, as we now show, sometimes accompanied by ectopic insertions of double-cut fragments. Here, we investigate how meiotic DSB end processing influences end joining. In MRE11-deficient mouse spermatocytes, which do not resect their DSBs, deletions at double cuts occur readily, with end-joining breakpoint profiles closely matching SPO11 DSB profiles. Microdeletions suggest that two DSBs can be as close as ~21 bp. The tyrosyl DNA phosphodiesterase TDP2 contributes to both deletion formation and ectopic insertion of double-cut fragments, presumably by removing SPO11 from DNA ends prior to joining. Finally, observations suggest a cooperative role for MRE11 and ATM in locally regulating DSB distributions. Our findings provide insight into the mechanism of de novo mutation origin, emphasizing the role of meiotic DSBs in shaping genome evolution.