Meiotic DNA breaks activate a streamlined phospho-signaling response that largely avoids protein level changes

Abstract

Meiotic cells introduce a large number of programmed DNA breaks into their genome to stimulate meiotic recombination and ensure controlled chromosome inheritance and fertility. An intricate checkpoint network involving key kinases and phosphatases coordinates the repair of these DNA breaks during meiosis, but the precise DNA break-dependent phosphorylation targets remain poorly understood. It is also unknown whether meiotic DNA breaks change gene expression akin to the canonical DNA-damage response. To address these questions, we analyzed the meiotic DNA break response in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using multiple systems-level approaches. We identified 332 DNA break-dependent phosphorylation sites, vastly expanding the number of known DNA break-dependent phosphorylation events during meiotic prophase. Only about half of these events occurred in recognition motifs for the known meiotic checkpoint kinases Mec1 (ATR), Tel1 (ATM) and Mek1 (CHK2), suggesting that additional kinases contribute to the meiotic DNA break response. Surprisingly, the numerous changes in phosphorylation were accompanied by very few changes in protein levels despite a clearly detectable transcriptional response. To explain this dichotomy, we show that meiotic entry lowers the expression baseline of many mRNAs enough so that subsequent break-dependent mRNA production has no measurable effects on the largely stable proteome.