Scrunching During DNA Repair Synthesis

Family X polymerases like DNA polymerase λ (pol λ) are well suited for filling short gaps during DNA repair because they simultaneously bind both the 5′ and 3′ ends of short gaps. DNA binding and gap filling are well characterized for one nucleotide gaps, but the location of yet-to-be-copied template nucleotides in longer gaps is unknown. Here we present crystal structures revealing that when bound to a two-nucleotide gap, pol λ scrunches the template strand and binds the additional uncopied template base in an extrahelical position within a binding pocket comprised of three conserved amino acids. Replacing these amino acids with alanine results in less processive gap filling and less efficient NHEJ involving two nucleotide gaps. Thus, akin to scrunching by RNA polymerase during transcription initiation, scrunching occurs during gap filling DNA synthesis associated with DNA repair.