Budding yeast ATM/ATR contribute to meiotic double-strand-break (DSB) homeostasis by down-regulating Rec114, an essential component of the DSB-machinery

In most organisms, meiotic recombination begins with programmed DNA double strand break (DSB) formation by Spo11. Here, we present evidence that Tel1/Mec1, the budding yeast ATM/ATR, regulate DSB formation by phosphorylating Rec114, an essential Spo11-accessory protein. Analyses of a non-phosphorylatable- or phosphomimetic- alleles of rec114 revealed that DSB-dependent phosphorylation of Rec114 limited its association with DSB-hotspots resulting in reduction in DSB formation. Also observed were the impact of Rec114 phosphorylation on its homolog synapsis-associated removal from chromosomes and NDT80-dependent turnover. Specifically, we found that the synapsis- and NDT80-dependent Rec114 downregulation occurred later in the rec114 mutant with a reduced Spo11-catalysis, but earlier in the other with an enhanced catalysis, strongly implicating the existence of a feedback mechanism coupling the extent of Spo11-catalysis to Rec114 activity. Taken together, these observations suggest that three different mechanisms of down regulating Rec114 contribute to meiotic DSB homeostasis, a feedback mechanism to maintain the number of meiotic DSBs at the developmentally programmed level. 6 genome wide ChIPchip sets: 3 for meiotic DSB formation (Spo11-ChIP) and 3 for protein-DNA association (Rec114-ChIP), each for wild type and two mutants during meiosis (corresponding to the main Figure 3, as well as to Figures S3, S4, S5).