Nucleotide excision repair

Nucleotide excision repair is a DNA repair pathway that recognizes bulky lesions, removes a short stretch of the damaged strand, and fills the gap using the intact strand as a template.

DNA damage recognition: The detection of structural or chemical abnormalities in DNA by cellular proteins. Repair begins when proteins detect a lesion or a distortion in the DNA helix.
DNA: The hereditary molecule whose nucleotide sequence stores biological information. Nucleotide excision repair acts on DNA strands and preserves their sequence.
Base excision repair: A DNA repair pathway that removes individual damaged bases and repairs the resulting small gap. It handles small base lesions rather than the bulky, helix-distorting damage typical of nucleotide excision repair.
Xeroderma pigmentosum: A group of inherited disorders marked by extreme sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation and greatly increased skin cancer risk. Defects in nucleotide excision repair cause most forms of this disorder.
James Cleaver: A biochemist whose research linked defective DNA repair to xeroderma pigmentosum. His work showed that cells from affected individuals have impaired removal of ultraviolet-induced DNA damage.
XPC: A protein that recognizes DNA damage and initiates global-genome nucleotide excision repair in humans. XPC detects many helix-distorting lesions before the damaged strand is opened.
DNA lesion: A chemical or structural abnormality in DNA that can interfere with replication or transcription. Lesions are the abnormalities this repair pathway removes.
Mismatch repair: A DNA repair pathway that corrects mispaired bases and small insertion or deletion loops left after replication. It corrects replication errors rather than excising bulky chemical lesions.
Cockayne syndrome: An inherited disorder involving growth failure, neurological abnormalities, and heightened sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. Defects in transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair commonly underlie the syndrome.
Philip Hanawalt: A biologist who helped establish excision repair through studies of DNA repair synthesis. His experiments helped demonstrate that damaged DNA is removed and replaced in cells.

Linked from 11 pages