Replication across unrepaired DNA lesions in mammalian cells is effected primarily by specialized, low fidelity DNA polymerases. We studied translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) across a benzo[a]pyrene-guanine (BP-G) adduct, a major mutagenic DNA lesion generated by tobacco smoke. This was done using a quantitative assay that measures TLS indirectly, by measuring the recovery of gapped plasmids transfected into cultured mammalian cells. Analysis of PolK ؉/؉ mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs) showed that TLS across the BP-G adduct occurred with an efficiency of 48 ؎ 4%, which is an order of magnitude higher than in Escherichia coli. In PolK ؊/؊ MEFs, bypass was 16 ؎ 1%, suggesting that at least twothirds of the BP-G adducts in MEFs were bypassed exclusively by polymerase (pol ). In contrast, pol was not required for bypass across BP-G in a human XP-V cell line. Analysis of misinsertion specificity across BP-G revealed that bypass was more error-prone in MEFs lacking pol . Expression of pol from a plasmid introduced into PolK ؊/؊ MEFs restored both the extent and fidelity of bypass across BP-G. Pol was not required for bypass of a synthetic abasic site. In vitro analysis demonstrated efficient bypass across BP-G by both pol and pol , suggesting that the biological role of pol in TLS across BP-G is due to regulation of TLS and not due to an exclusive ability to bypass this lesion. These results indicate that BP-G is bypassed in mammalian cells with relatively high efficiency and that pol bypasses BP-G in vivo with higher efficiency and higher accuracy than other DNA polymerases.Genomic DNA is constantly subject to damage caused by both external agents, such as sunlight, and endogenous chemicals, such as reactive oxygen species. Most of this damage is eliminated by error-free DNA repair mechanisms, thereby restoring the DNA to its native sequence (1). However, a significant number of lesions escape repair and might therefore interfere with DNA replication and gene expression. Such interference can be mitigated by DNA damage tolerance mechanisms, primarily translesion DNA synthesis (TLS 1 ; also termed translesion replication) (2-5) and postreplicative recombinational repair (1, 6 -8). The key components in TLS are low fidelity DNA polymerases that specialize in lesion bypass (9 -12). These proteins were conserved in evolution and are present in organisms ranging from Escherichia coli to humans (13). Humans contain at least four specialized DNA polymerases belonging to the Y superfamily (pol , pol , pol , and REV1) as well as several from other polymerase families (e.g. pol (14), pol (15, 16), and pol (16, 17)). Many of these polymerases have been implicated in TLS in vitro (18 -24). However, there is a paucity of information about the efficiency and fidelity with which they support lesion bypass in living cells.Pol has a well established biological role in TLS, since it is mutated in all patients examined with the variant form of the hereditary disease xeroderma pigmentosum (10,18). This disease is characterized by sensitivi...