Hoang et al. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

The synthesis of poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) reconfigures the local environment and recruits repair complexes to damaged chromatin. The degradation of PAR by PARG is essential for progression and completion of DNA repair. Here, we show that inhibition of PARG disrupts homology-directed repair (HDR) mechanisms that underpin alternative telomere lengthening (ALT). By proteomics, we uncovered a novel role for PARylation in regulating the chromatin assembly factor, HIRA in ALT cancer cells. We show that HIRA is enriched at telomeres during G2 phase and is indispensable for histone H3.3 deposition and telomere DNA synthesis. Depletion of HIRA elicits systemic death of ALT cancer cells was mitigated by re-expression of ATRX protein that is frequently inactivated in ALT tumors. We propose that PARylation enables HIRA to fulfill its essential role in the adaptive response due to ATRX deficiency that pervades ALT cancers.