Book chapter
RAD51 Is a Key Protein of DNA Repair and Homologous Recombination in Humans
Advances in DNA Repair in Cancer Therapy
03 Nov 2012
Abstract
Ionizing radiation and various chemotherapeutic agents kill cancer cells by inducing DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) or interstrand DNA cross links. Cells however can resist the killing effect by repairing these lesions using the homologous recombination (HR) pathway [1–3]. HR achieves high fidelity of repairing DNA breaks through the unique mechanism that employs homologous DNA as a template [4]. The initial step of HR involves exonucleolytic processing of the DNA ends into a resected DNA duplex with protruding 3′-ssDNA tails (Fig. 1) [5]. Then, RAD51 protein loads onto the ssDNA to form a contiguous helical nucleoprotein filament that promotes a search for the homologous dsDNA [6, 7]. Once the homologous sequence is found, RAD51 promotes the exchange of DNA strands that resulted in formation of joint molecules [8, 9]. Joint molecules provide both a template and a primer for the DNA synthesis that is required for retrieving the information lost at the site of the break and for the consequent restoration of a contiguous DNA structure.
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2 citations in Scopus
Details
- Title
- RAD51 Is a Key Protein of DNA Repair and Homologous Recombination in Humans
- Creators
- Alexander V. Mazin - Drexel UniversityOlga M. Mazina - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Advances in DNA Repair in Cancer Therapy
- Series
- Cancer Drug Discovery and Development
- Publisher
- Springer New York; New York, NY
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84907295707
- Other Identifier
- 991019173774004721