14-3-3σ is a member of a highly conserved family of 14-3-3 proteins that are present in all eukaryotic organisms. 14-3-3σ has been considered as a tumor suppressor with reduced expression in some human cancers while its increased expression causes resistance to anticancer agents and radiation that cause DNA damages. The increased expression of 14-3-3σ may also predict poor prognosis in some hum...

Part 1 of the study intends to show that the universal trend of amino acid gain and loss discovered by Jordan et al. (2005) can be accounted for by the spontaneity of DNA typical damages. These damages lead to replacements of guanine and cytosine by thymine. Part 2 proposes a hypothesis of the evolution of the genetic code, the leading mechanism of which is the nucleotide spontaneous damage. Th...

DNA damages and antioxidant status was assessed after 8 weeks of purple grape juice supplementation in male smokers depending on the glutathione S-transferase polymorphisms. Ninety-five smokers consumed 480 ml of purple grape juice for 8 weeks. The blood samples were collected before and after supplementation to measure lymphocyte DNA damages, plasma antioxidants, conjugated diene, and the eryt...

Double-strand DNA breaks are the most lethal type of DNA damage induced by ionizing radiations. Previously, we reported that double-strand DNA breaks can be enzymatically produced from two DNA damages located on opposite DNA strands 18 or 30 base pairs apart in a cell-free double-strand DNA break formation assay (Vispé, S., and Satoh, M. S. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 27386-27392). In the assay ...

DNA polymerase lambda (Pol λ) is a novel family X DNA polymerase which has been shown to play key role in nuclear DNA repair and meiotic recombination. Recent studies in mammals support function of this enzyme in base excision repair in response to oxidative DNA damage. However, in plants the biological function of Pol λ in oxidative stress response is still largely unknown. This review will su...

p73 is one of the tumor-suppressor p53 family of nuclear transcription factor. As expected from the structural similarity between p53 and p73, p73 has a tumor-suppressive function. However, p73 was rarely mutated in human primary tumors. Under normal physiological conditions, p73 is kept at an extremely low level to allow cells normal growth. In response to a certain subset of DNA damages, p73 ...