SAE2 (yeast) explained

SAE2 is a gene in budding yeast, coding for the protein Sae2, which is involved in DNA repair. Sae2 is a part of the homologous recombination process in response to double-strand breaks.^[1] It is best characterized in the yeast model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae.^[2] Homologous genes in other organisms include Ctp1 in fission yeast, Com1 in plants, and CtIP in higher eukaryotes including humans.

Sae2 and its homologs have relatively long low-complexity regions in their primary sequences and appear to have large intrinsically unstructured regions. Sae2 likely forms tetramers through coiled-coil sequences. Proteins of this family are DNA-binding proteins and are involved in DNA end resection and bridging at double-strand breaks.^{[3] [4]} Sae2 has been reported to have endonuclease activity,^[5] though it has no bioinformatically recognizable nuclease sequence and reports of this activity are not consistent in the literature.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Rattray . AJ . McGill . CB . Shafer . BK . Strathern . JN . Fidelity of mitotic double-strand-break repair in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a role for SAE2/COM1. . Genetics . May 2001 . 158 . 1 . 109–22 . 10.1093/genetics/158.1.109 . 11333222. 1461648 .
2. Andres . Sara N. . Williams . R. Scott . CtIP/Ctp1/Sae2, molecular form fit for function . DNA Repair . August 2017 . 56 . 109–117 . 10.1016/j.dnarep.2017.06.013. 28623092 . 5543718 .
3. Huertas . Pablo . Cortés-Ledesma . Felipe . Sartori . Alessandro A. . Aguilera . Andrés . Jackson . Stephen P. . CDK targets Sae2 to control DNA-end resection and homologous recombination . Nature . October 2008 . 455 . 7213 . 689–692 . 10.1038/nature07215. 18716619 . 2635538 . 2008Natur.455..689H .
4. Clerici . Michela . Mantiero . Davide . Lucchini . Giovanna . Longhese . Maria Pia . The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Sae2 Protein Promotes Resection and Bridging of Double Strand Break Ends . Journal of Biological Chemistry . 18 November 2005 . 280 . 46 . 38631–38638 . 10.1074/jbc.M508339200. 16162495 . free .
5. Lengsfeld . Bettina M. . Rattray . Alison J. . Bhaskara . Venugopal . Ghirlando . Rodolfo . Paull . Tanya T. . Sae2 Is an Endonuclease that Processes Hairpin DNA Cooperatively with the Mre11/Rad50/Xrs2 Complex . Molecular Cell . November 2007 . 28 . 4 . 638–651 . 10.1016/j.molcel.2007.11.001. 18042458 . 2194599 .
6. Cannavo . Elda . Cejka . Petr . Sae2 promotes dsDNA endonuclease activity within Mre11–Rad50–Xrs2 to resect DNA breaks . Nature . October 2014 . 514 . 7520 . 122–125 . 10.1038/nature13771. 25231868 . 2014Natur.514..122C . 205240691 .