The mutL gene of Escherichia coli, which is involved in the repair of mispaired and unpaired nucleotides in DNA, has been independently cloned and the gene product purified. In addition to restoring methyl-directed DNA repair in extracts prepared from mutL strains, the purified MutL protein binds to both double and single stranded DNA. The affinity constant of MutL for unmethylated single stran...

DNA repair is critical to resolve extrinsic or intrinsic DNA damage to ensure regulated gene transcription and DNA replication. These pathways control repair of double strand breaks, interstrand crosslinks, and nucleotide lesions occurring on single strands. Distinct DNA repair pathways are highly inter-linked for the fast and optimal DNA repair. A deregulation of DNA repair pathways may mainta...

Single-stranded DNA-binding (SSB) proteins play an important role in DNA metabolism involving replication, recombination, and repair all living beings. In molecular biology, SSB are used as enhancers to increase the efficiency specificity of PCR. Thermostable protein eliminates secondary structure or dimer formation significantly effectiveness amplification fragments. this study, it was ensured...

In the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, genes in close proximity to telomeres are subject to transcriptional silencing through the process of telomere position effect (TPE). Here, we show that the protein Ku, previously implicated in DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair and in telomeric length maintenance, is also essential for telomeric silencing. Furthermore, using an in vivo plasmid ...

Much effort has long been devoted to unraveling the coordinated cellular response to genotoxic insults. In view of the difficulty of obtaining human biological samples of homogeneous origin, I have established a set of stable human clones where one DNA repair gene has been stably silenced by means of RNA interference. I used pEBVsiRNA plasmids that greatly enhance long-term gene silencing in hu...

To investigate the influence of function or activity of a DNA sequence on its repair, we have studied excision repair of a number of adducts in the non-transcribed, heterochromatic alpha DNA of monkey cells (by physically isolating the DNA) and also the removal of pyrimidine dimers in a number of genes in rodent and human cells (by an indirect assay using a dimer-specific endonuclease). In conf...

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is an important environmental carcinogen and can induce DNA damage and involve in the carcinogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The deficiency of DNA repair capacity related to the polymorphisms of DNA repair genes might play a central role in the process of HCC tumorigenesis. However, the interaction of DNA repair gene polymorphisms and AFB1 in the risk of hepatocel...

In response to a variety of types of DNA damage, the p53 tumor suppressor gene product is activated and regulates a number of downstream cellular processes such as cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and DNA repair. Recent discoveries concerning the regulation of DNA repair processes by p53, such as nucleotide excision repair (NER) and base excision repair (BER) have paved the way for studies to under...

The gene (crc) responsible for catabolite repression control in Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been cloned and sequenced. Flanking the crc gene are genes encoding orotate phosphoribosyl transferase (pyrE) and RNase PH (rph). New crc mutants were constructed by disruption of the wild-type crc gene. The crc gene encodes an open reading frame of 259 amino acids with homology to the apurinic/apyrimidin...

The development of targeted gene repair is under way and, despite some setbacks, shows promise as an alternative form of gene therapy. This approach uses synthetic DNA molecules to activate and direct the cell's inherent DNA repair systems to correct inborn errors. The progress of this technique and its therapeutic potential are discussed in relation to the treatment of genetic diseases.