The RAD52 recombinational repair pathway is essential in pol30 (PCNA) mutants that accumulate small single-stranded DNA fragments during DNA synthesis.

To identify in vivo pathways that compensate for impaired proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA or Pol30p in yeast) activity, we performed a synthetic lethal screen with the yeast pol30-104 mutation. We identified nine mutations that display synthetic lethality with pol30-104; three mutations affected the structural gene for the large subunit of replication factor C (rfc1), which loads PCNA onto DNA, and six mutations affected three members of the RAD52 epistasis group for DNA recombinational repair (rad50, rad52 and rad57). We also found that pol30-104 displayed synthetic lethality with mutations in other members of the RAD52 epistasis group (rad51 and rad54), but not with mutations in members of the RAD3 nor the RAD6 epistasis group. Analysis of nine different pol30 mutations shows that the requirement for the RAD52 pathway is correlated with a DNA replication defect but not with the relative DNA repair defect caused by pol30 mutations. In addition, mutants that require RAD52 for viability (pol30-100, pol30-104, rfc1-1 and rth1delta) accumulate small single-stranded DNA fragments during DNA replication in vivo. Taken together, these data suggest that the RAD52 pathway is required when there are defects in the maturation of Okazaki fragments.