Base excision repair
Base Excision Repair (pronunciation: base ex-ci-sion re-pair) is a cellular mechanism that repairs damaged DNA throughout the cell cycle. It is primarily responsible for removing small, non-helix-distorting base lesions from the genome. The process is crucial in fixing the damage that could otherwise lead to mutations or cell death.
Etymology
The term "Base Excision Repair" is derived from its function. "Base" refers to the base pairs in the DNA, "Excision" refers to the process of cutting out, and "Repair" refers to the process of fixing the damage.
Process
The Base Excision Repair process involves several steps:
- Recognition of the damaged base by a DNA glycosylase enzyme.
- Excision of the damaged base by the same DNA glycosylase to create an apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site.
- Cleavage of the phosphodiester backbone at the AP site by an AP endonuclease.
- Removal of the deoxyribose phosphate by a phosphodiesterase.
- Filling in of the resulting gap by a DNA polymerase.
- Sealing of the nick by a DNA ligase.
Related Terms
- DNA glycosylase: An enzyme that recognizes and removes damaged bases in DNA, initiating the base excision repair pathway.
- AP endonuclease: An enzyme that recognizes and cleaves the phosphodiester backbone at AP sites.
- DNA polymerase: An enzyme that synthesizes new strands of DNA complementary to the target template strand.
- DNA ligase: An enzyme that facilitates the joining of DNA strands together by catalyzing the formation of a phosphodiester bond.
See Also
External links
- Medical encyclopedia article on Base excision repair
- Wikipedia's article - Base excision repair
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