Infection with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) has been linked to several human cancers, the most prominent of which is cervical cancer. The integration of the viral genome into the host genome is one of the manners in which the viral oncogenes E6 and E7 achieve persistent expression. The most well-studied cellular targets of the viral oncogenes E6 and E7 are p53 and pRb, respectively. However, recent research has demonstrated the ability of these two viral factors to target many more cellular factors, including proteins which regulate epigenetic marks and splicing changes in the cell. These have the ability to exert a global change, which eventually culminates to uncontrolled proliferation and carcinogenesis.

The MCM2-7 helicase complex is loaded on DNA replication origins during the G1 phase of the cell cycle to license the origins for replication in S phase. How the initiator primase–polymerase complex, DNA polymerase α (pol α), is brought to the origins is still unclear. We show that And-1/Ctf4 (Chromosome transmission fidelity 4) interacts with Mcm10, which associates with MCM2-7, and with the p180 subunit of DNA pol α. And-1 is essential for DNA synthesis and the stability of p180 in mammalian cells. In Xenopus egg extracts And-1 is loaded on the chromatin after Mcm10, concurrently with DNA pol α, and is required for efficient DNA synthesis. Mcm10 is required for chromatin loading of And-1 and an antibody that disrupts the Mcm10–And-1 interaction interferes with the loading of And-1 and of pol α, inhibiting DNA synthesis. And-1/Ctf4 is therefore a new replication initiation factor that brings together the MCM2-7 helicase and the DNA pol α–primase complex, analogous to the linker between helicase and primase or helicase and polymerase that is seen in the bacterial replication machinery. The discovery also adds to the connection between replication initiation and sister chromatid cohesion.

The role of chromatin-remodeling factors in transcription is well established, but the link between chromatin-remodeling complexes and DNA repair remains unexplored. Human Rvb1 and Rvb2 are highly conserved AAA(+) ATP binding proteins that are part of various chromatin-remodeling complexes, such as Ino80, SNF2-related CBP activator protein (SRCAP), and Tip60/NuA4 complexes, but their molecular function is unclear. The depletion of Rvb1 increases the amount and persistence of phosphorylation on chromatin-associated H2AX after the exposure of cells to UV irradiation or to mitomycin C, cisplatin, camptothecin, or etoposide, without increasing the amount of DNA damage. Tip60 depletion, but not Ino80 or SRCAP depletion, mimics the effect of Rvb1 depletion on H2AX phosphorylation. Rvb1 is required for the histone acetyltransferase (HAT) activity of the Tip60 complex, and histone H4 acetylation is required prior to the dephosphorylation of phospho-H2AX. Thus, Rvb1 is critical for the dephosphorylation of phospho-H2AX due to the role of Rvb1 in maintaining the HAT activity of Tip60/NuA4, implicating the Rvb1-Tip60 complex in the chromatin-remodeling response of cells after DNA damage.