Replicative age induces mitotic recombination in the ribosomal RNA gene cluster of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

ABSTRACT: Somatic mutations contribute to the development of age-associated disease. In earlier work, we found that, at high frequency, aging Saccharomyces cerevisiae diploid cells produce daughters without mitochondrial DNA, leading to loss of respiration competence and increased loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in the nuclear genome. Here we used the recently developed Mother Enrichment Program to ask whether aging cells that maintain the ability to produce respiration-competent daughters also experience increased genomic instability. We discovered that this population exhibits a distinct genomic instability phenotype that primarily affects the repeated ribosomal RNA gene array (rDNA array). As diploid cells passed their median replicative life span, recombination rates between rDNA arrays on homologo

SUBMITTER: Lindstrom DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3060066 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature