Topoisomerase II suppresses the temperature sensitivity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae pds5 mutants, but not the defect in sister chromatid cohesion

Sister chromatid cohesion enables chromosomes to achieve bipolar attachment to the mitotic spindle and its dissolution is required for chromosome segregation. The cohesin complex serves as the primary molecular glue responsible for cohesion. Pds5p binds to the same chromosomal loci as the cohesin complex but plays a distinct role as a regulator of cohesion maintenance. Catenation between sister chromatids must also be removed by Topoisomerase II (Top2p) enzymatic activity to enable chromosome segregation. We identified TOP2 as a high-copy suppressor of the temperature sensitivity of pds5 mutants. TOP2 suppression is specific for pds5 mutants as it does not suppress mutants in the cohesin complex. TOP2 suppresses mini-chromosome loss in pds5 mutants indicating that it rescues a chromosome segregation defect. Surprisingly, TOP2 overexpression fails to suppress the cohesion defect of pds5 mutants, suggesting that it suppresses an additional and as yet uncharacterized defect in pds5 mutants that is essential for viability. A catalytically dead TOP2 allele suppresses pds5 temperature sensitivity, suggesting that suppression is unrelated to Top2p enzymatic function. Consistent with this idea, when the pds5 mutant is combined with the top2-4 mutant, which accumulates DNA catenanes due to defective enzymatic activity, the double mutants exhibit synthetic sickness indicating that increased catenation is toxic to pds5 cells. Our results suggest that Pds5p and Top2p cooperate to promote proper chromosome segregation by a mechanism unrelated to either cohesion or catenation/decatenation.