Yeast-based assays for the functional characterization of cancer-associated variants of human DNA repair genes
Authors:Tiziana Cervelli1, Samuele Lodovichi1, Francesca Bellè1 and Alvaro Galli1
doi: 10.15698/mic2020.07.721
Volume 7, pp. 162 to 174, published 18/05/2020.
1 Yeast Genetics and Genomics Group, Laboratory of Functional Genetics and Genomics, Institute of Clinical Physiology CNR, Via Moruzzi 1, 56125 Pisa, Italy.
Keywords:
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, human DNA repair genes, cancer-associated variants, functional assays, humanized yeast strains
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of inter-est.
Please cite this article as:
Tiziana Cervelli, Samuele Lodovichi, Francesca Bellè and Alvaro Galli (2020). Yeast-based assays for the functional char-acterization of cancer-associated variants of human DNA repair genes. Microbial Cell 7(7): 162-174. doi: 10.15698/mic2020.07.721
© 2020 Cervelli et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduc-tion in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Technological advances are continuously revealing new genetic variants that are often difficult to interpret. As one of the most genetically tractable model organisms, yeast can have a central role in determining the consequences of human genetic variation. DNA repair gene mutations are associated with many types of cancers, therefore the evaluation of the functional impact of these mutations is crucial for risk assessment and for determining therapeutic strategies. Owing to the evolutionary conservation of DNA repair pathways between human cells and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, several functional assays have been developed. Here, we describe assays for variants of human genes belonging to the major DNA repair pathways divided in functional assays for human genes with yeast orthologues and human genes lacking a yeast orthologue. Human genes with orthologues can be studied by introducing the correspondent human mutations directly in the yeast gene or expressing the human gene carrying the mutations; while the only possible approach for human genes without a yeast orthologue is the heterologous expression. The common principle of these approaches is that the mutated gene determines a phenotypic alteration that can vary according to the gene studied and the domain of the protein. Here, we show how the versatility of yeast can help in classifying cancer-associated variants.