Publication details
Srs2: the Odd-Job Man in DNA repair
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2010 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | DNA Repair |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Biochemistry |
| Keywords | DNA repair; DNA damage; replication; genomic instability |
| Description | The genome is constantly threatened by various damaging agents and maintaining its integrity is crucial in all organisms. Several repair pathways have been implicated in the removal of different types of lesions from DNA. Among them, homologous recombination (HR) plays a key role in repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs). Although HR is a highly important repair mechanism, it has to be regulated to prevent it from interfering with other DNA repair pathways, generating toxic intermediates, or blocking the progression of the replication fork. Therefore, it is not surprising that cells have evolved mechanisms that counteract untimely HR events. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, one of the pathways responsible for regulation of HR requires the action of the SRS2 gene product. Mutations in the SRS2 gene exhibit pleiotropic recombination phenotypes ranging from anti-recombinogenic in one aspect to pro-recombinogenic in another. In addition to its role in HR, Srs2 is also involved in other DNA metabolism processes, including post-replication repair (PRR), preservation of replication fork integrity, DNA-damage checkpoint responses, DNA triplet maintenance and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). The aim of this review is to summarize the current knowledge about Srs2 and its effect on multiple DNA metabolic processes that generally affect genome stability. It would appear that Srs2 functions as an Odd-Job Man in these processes to make sure that the jobs proceed when and where they are needed. |
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