The human homologue of fission Yeast cdc27, p66, is a component of active human DNA polymerase delta.

ABSTRACT

An essential eukaryotic DNA polymerase, DNA polymerase delta (pol delta), synthesizes DNA processively in the presence of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). Recently, a 66 kDa polypeptide (p66) that displays significant homology within its PCNA binding domain to that of fission yeast cdc27 was identified as a component of mouse and calf thymus pol delta. Our studies show that p66 interacts tightly with other subunits of pol delta during size fractionation of human cell extracts, and co-immunoprecipitates with these subunits along with PCNA-dependent polymerase activity. Active human pol delta could be reconstituted by co-expressing p125, p50, and p66 recombinant baculoviruses, but not by co-expressing p125 and p50 alone. Interaction studies demonstrated that p66 stabilizes the association between p125 and p50. Pull-down assays with PCNA-linked beads demonstrated that p66 increases the overall affinity of pol delta for PCNA. These results indicate that p66 is a functionally important subunit of human pol delta that stabilizes the pol delta complex and increases the affinity of pol delta for PCNA.