SPONTANEOUS AND RESTRICTION ENZYME-INDUCED CHROMOSOMAL RECOMBINATION IN MAMMALIAN-CELLS

We have derived Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell hybrids containing herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (tk) heteroalleles for the study of spontaneous and restriction enzyme-induced interchromosomal recombination. These lines allowed us to make a direct comparison between spontaneous intrachromosomal and interchromosomal recombination using the same tk heteroalleles at the same genomic insertion site. We find that the frequency of interchromosomal recombination is less by a factor of at least 5000 than that of intrachromosomal recombination. Our results with mammalian cells differ markedly from results with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with which similar studies typically give only a 10- to 30-fold difference. Next, to inquire into the fate of double-strand breaks at either of the two different Xho I linker insertion mutations, we electroporated PaeR7I enzyme, an isoschizomer of Xho I, into these hybrids. A priori, these breaks can be repaired either by recombination from the homolog or by end-joining. Despite a predicted bias against recovering end-joining products in our system, all cells characterized by enzyme-induced resistance to hypoxanthine/aminopterin/thymidine were, in fact, due to nonhomologous recombination or end-joining. These results are in agreement with other studies that used extrachromosomal sequences to examine the relative efficiencies of end-joining and homologous recombination in mammalian cells, but are in sharp contrast to results of analogous studies in S. cerevisiae, wherein only products of homologous events are detected.