The influence of a (GT)(29) microsatellite sequence on homologous recombination in the hamster adenine phosphoribosyltransferase gene

Several DNA sequence elements are thought to stimulate homologous recombination, illegitimate recombination, or both in mammalian cells. Some are implicated by their recurrence around rearrangement breakpoints, others by their effects on recombination of extrachromosomal plasmids. None of these sequences, however, has been tested on the chromosome in a defined context. In this paper we show how the adenine phosphoribosyltransferase locus in CHO cells can be used to study the recombinogenic potential of defined DNA sequences. As an example we have measured the effect on homologous recombination of a dinucleotide repeat, (GT)(29), which has been shown to stimulate homologous recombination in extrachromosomal vectors 3-20-fold. On the chromosome at the adenine phosphoribosyltransferase locus, however, this sequence shows no capacity to stimulate recombination or to influence the distribution of recombination events.