Genome-wide analysis of a multi-incident family with autosomal-dominant parkinsonism has implicated a locus on chromosomal region 3q26-q28. Linkage and disease segregation is explained by a missense mutation c.3614G>A (p.Arg1205His) in eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4-gamma (EIF4G1). Subsequent sequence and genotype analysis identified EIF4G1 c.1505C>T (p.Ala502Val), c.2056G>T (p.Gly686Cys), c.3490A>C (p.Ser1164Arg), c.3589C>T (p.Arg1197Trp) and c.3614G>A (p.Arg1205His) substitutions in affected subjects with familial parkinsonism and idiopathic Lewy body disease but not in control subjects. Despite different countries of origin, persons with EIF4G1 c.1505C>T (p.Ala502Val) or c.3614G>A (p.Arg1205His) mutations appear to share haplotypes consistent with ancestral founders. eIF4G1 p.Ala502Val and p.Arg1205His disrupt eIF4E or eIF3e binding, although the wild-type protein does not, and render mutant cells more vulnerable to reactive oxidative species. EIF4G1 mutations implicate mRNA translation initiation in familial parkinsonism and highlight a convergent pathway for monogenic, toxin and perhaps virally-induced Parkinson disease.

Cells rely on a network of conserved pathways to govern DNA replication fidelity. Loss of polymerase proofreading or mismatch repair elevates spontaneous mutation and facilitates cellular adaptation. However, double mutants are inviable, suggesting that extreme mutation rates exceed an error threshold. Here we combine alleles that affect DNA polymerase δ (Pol δ) proofreading and mismatch repair to define the maximal error rate in haploid yeast and to characterize genetic suppressors of mutator phenotypes. We show that populations tolerate mutation rates 1,000-fold above wild-type levels but collapse when the rate exceeds 10−3 inactivating mutations per gene per cell division. Variants that escape this error-induced extinction (eex) rapidly emerge from mutator clones. One-third of the escape mutants result from second-site changes in Pol δ that suppress the proofreading-deficient phenotype, while two-thirds are extragenic. The structural locations of the Pol δ changes suggest multiple antimutator mechanisms. Our studies reveal the transient nature of eukaryotic mutators and show that mutator phenotypes are readily suppressed by genetic adaptation. This has implications for the role of mutator phenotypes in cancer.

The ability to accurately measure mutations is critical for basic research and identifying potential drug and chemical carcinogens. Current methods for in vivo quantification of mutagenesis are limited because they rely on transgenic rodent systems that are low-throughput, expensive, prolonged, and do not fully represent other species such as humans. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a conceptually attractive alternative for detecting mutations in the DNA of any organism; however, the limit of resolution for standard NGS is poor. Technical error rates (∼1 × 10−3) of NGS obscure the true abundance of somatic mutations, which can exist at per-nucleotide frequencies ≤1 × 10−7. Using duplex sequencing, an extremely accurate error-corrected NGS (ecNGS) technology, we were able to detect mutations induced by three carcinogens in five tissues of two strains of mice within 31 d following exposure. We observed a strong correlation between mutation induction measured by duplex sequencing and the gold-standard transgenic rodent mutation assay. We identified exposure-specific mutation spectra of each compound through trinucleotide patterns of base substitution. We observed variation in mutation susceptibility by genomic region, as well as by DNA strand. We also identified a primordial marker of carcinogenesis in a cancer-predisposed strain of mice, as evidenced by clonal expansions of cells carrying an activated oncogene, less than a month after carcinogen exposure. These findings demonstrate that ecNGS is a powerful method for sensitively detecting and characterizing mutagenesis and the early clonal evolutionary hallmarks of carcinogenesis. Duplex sequencing can be broadly applied to basic mutational research, regulatory safety testing, and emerging clinical applications.

Highlights d Ovarian cancer can be detected by ultra-accurate sequencing of uterine lavage DNA d However, low-frequency TP53 mutations also exist in normal tissue of healthy women d TP53 mutations are increasingly selected for with age, revealing somatic evolution d Age-associated, cancer-like mutations challenge specificity for cancer detection

DNA polymerases (Pols) e and d perform the bulk of yeast leading-and lagging-strand DNA synthesis. Both Pols possess intrinsic proofreading exonucleases that edit errors during polymerization. Rare errors that elude proofreading are extended into duplex DNA and excised by the mismatch repair (MMR) system. Strains that lack Pol proofreading or MMR exhibit a 10-to 100-fold increase in spontaneous mutation rate (mutator phenotype), and inactivation of both Pol d proofreading (pol3-01) and MMR is lethal due to replication error-induced extinction (EEX). It is unclear whether a similar synthetic lethal relationship exists between defects in Pol e proofreading (pol2-4) and MMR. Using a plasmid-shuffling strategy in haploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we observed synthetic lethality of pol2-4 with alleles that completely abrogate MMR (msh2D, mlh1D, msh3D msh6D, or pms1D mlh3D) but not with partial MMR loss (msh3D, msh6D, pms1D, or mlh3D), indicating that high levels of unrepaired Pol e errors drive extinction. However, variants that escape this error-induced extinction (eex mutants) frequently emerged. Five percent of pol2-4 msh2D eex mutants encoded second-site changes in Pol e that reduced the pol2-4 mutator phenotype between 3-and 23-fold. The remaining eex alleles were extragenic to pol2-4. The locations of antimutator amino-acid changes in Pol e and their effects on mutation spectra suggest multiple mechanisms of mutator suppression. Our data indicate that unrepaired leading-and lagging-strand polymerase errors drive extinction within a few cell divisions and suggest that there are polymerase-specific pathways of mutator suppression. The prevalence of suppressors extragenic to the Pol e gene suggests that factors in addition to proofreading and MMR influence leading-strand DNA replication fidelity.O RGANISMS must accurately duplicate their genomes to avoid loss of long-term fitness. Consequently, cells employ high-fidelity DNA polymerases (Pols) equipped with proofreading exonucleases to replicate their DNA (reviewed in McCulloch and Kunkel 2008;Reha-Krantz 2010). Mismatch repair (MMR) further ensures the integrity of genetic information by targeting mismatches for excision from newly replicated DNA (reviewed in Kolodner and Marsischky 1999;Iyer et al. 2006;Hsieh and Yamane 2008). These polymerase error-correcting mechanisms, together with DNA damage repair (Friedberg et al. 2006), maintain the genome with less than one mutation per 10 9 nucleotides per cell division (Drake et al. 1998). Defects in proofreading or MMR result in mutator phenotypes characterized by increased rates of spontaneous mutation (Kolodner and Marsischky 1999;Iyer et al. 2006;Hsieh and Yamane 2008;McCulloch and Kunkel 2008; RehaKrantz 2010).Mutator phenotypes can be an important source of genetic diversity, which facilitates adaptation to environmental change. In bacterial and yeast populations, unstable environments favor mutator strains that readily acquire adaptive mutations (Chao and Cox 1983;Mao et al. 1997;Sniegowski et al. 1997...