A Nonhomologous End-Joining Mutant for Neurospora sitophila Research

Bacterial nonhomologous end joining requires teamwork.

All living organisms must repair DNA double-stranded breaks (DSBs) in order to survive. Many bacteria rely on nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) when only a single copy of the genome is available and maintain NHEJ pathways with a minimum of two proteins. In this issue, Bhattarai and colleagues identify additional factors that can work together to aid in survival of stationary-phase cells with chr...

SnapShot: Nonhomologous DNA End Joining (NHEJ)

Heterokaryosis in Neurospora sitophila.

ETEROKARYOSIS has been extensively used as a major tool in formal genetic analysis of both Mendelian and non-Mendelian genes and in establishing gene-enzyme relationships. So far it is the only way to perform genetic anslysis of somatic cells in tissue culture (EPHRUSSI 1965; MINTZ and BAKER 1967). These aspects of heterokaryosis have been reviewed elsewhere ( JINKS 1965; FINCHAM 1966; DAVIS 19...

Essential role for polymerase specialization in cellular nonhomologous end joining.

Nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) repairs chromosome breaks and must remain effective in the face of extensive diversity in broken end structures. We show here that this flexibility is often reliant on the ability to direct DNA synthesis across strand breaks, and that polymerase (Pol) μ and Pol λ are the only mammalian DNA polymerases that have this activity. By systematically varying substrate ...

The akuB(KU80) mutant deficient for nonhomologous end joining is a powerful tool for analyzing pathogenicity in Aspergillus fumigatus.

To increase the frequency of homologous recombination, we inactivated the KU80 homologue in Aspergillus fumigatus (named akuB(KU80)). Homologous integration reached about 80% for both calcineurin A (calA) and polyketide synthase pksP (alb1) genes in the akuB(KU80) mutant to 3 and 5%, respectively, when using a wild-type A. fumigatus strain. Deletion of akuB(KU80) had no influence on pathogenici...