The DNA double-strand break (DSB) is a critical type of damage, and can be induced by both endogenous sources (e.g., errors of oxidative metabolism, transposable elements, programmed meiotic breaks, or perturbation of the DNA replication fork) and exogenous sources (e.g., ionizing radiation or radiomimetic chemicals). Although higher plants, like mammals, are thought to preferentially repair DS...

MYC regulates a myriad of genes controlling cell proliferation, metabolism, differentiation, and apoptosis. MYC also controls the expression of DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair genes and therefore may be a potential target for anticancer therapy to sensitize cancer cells to DNA damage or prevent genetic instability. In this report, we studied whether MYC binds to DSB repair gene promoters a...

Double-stranded DNA breaks (DSB) cause bacteria to augment expression of DNA repair and various stress response proteins. A puzzling exception educes the anticodon nuclease (ACNase) RloC, which resembles the DSB responder Rad50 and the antiviral, translation-disabling ACNase PrrC. While PrrC's ACNase is regulated by a DNA restriction-modification (R-M) protein and a phage anti-DNA restriction p...

Crossovers between meiotic homologs are crucial for their proper segregation, and crossover number and position are carefully controlled. Crossover homeostasis in budding yeast maintains crossovers at the expense of noncrossovers when double-strand DNA break (DSB) frequency is reduced. The mechanism of maintaining constant crossover levels in other species has been unknown. Here we investigate ...

Over recent decades, a deep understanding of pathways that repair DNA double strand breaks (DSB) has been gained from biochemical, structural, biophysical and cellular studies. DNA non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR) represent the two major DSB repair pathways, and both processes are now well understood. Recent work has demonstrated that the chromatin environment...

The repair of DNA double strand breaks (dsb) is important for maintaining the physical and genetic integrity of the genome. Moreover, in humans it is associated with the prevention of diseases such as immune deficiencies and cancer. This review briefly explores the fundamental strategies for repairing dsb, examines how cells maximize the fidelity of dsb repair in the cell cycle and discusses th...

Meiotic recombination in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is initiated by double-strand breaks (DSB) in chromosomal DNA. These DSB, which can be mapped in the rad 50S mutant yeast strain, are caused by a topoisomerase II-like enzyme, the protein Spo11. Evidence suggests that this protein is located in the axial element of the meiotic chromosome which implies that the DSB are located in these ...

To study double-strand break (DSB)-induced mutations in mammalian chromosomes, we stably transfected thymidine kinase (tk)-deficient mouse fibroblasts with a DNA substrate containing a recognition site for yeast endonuclease I-SceI embedded within a functional tk gene. Cells were then electroporated with a plasmid expressing endonuclease I-SceI to induce a DSB, and clones that had lost tk funct...

DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) can be repaired by non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) or homology-directed repair (HR). HR requires nucleolytic degradation of 5' DNA ends to generate tracts of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), which are also important for the activation of DNA damage checkpoints. Here we describe a quantitative analysis of DSB processing in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae....

In response to a DNA double-strand break (DSB), cells undergo a transient cell cycle arrest prior to mitosis until the break is repaired. In budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the DNA damage checkpoint is regulated by a signaling cascade of protein kinases, including Mec1 and Rad53. When DSB repair is complete, cells resume cell cycle progression (a process called "recovery") by turning ...