News item posted on 2015-10-30

CSB Researcher discovers new class of DNA repair enzyme

CSB Researcher Brandt Eichman, Ph.D., and colleagues have discovered a new class of DNA repair enzyme. Their findings, reported online in the journal Nature, define a new a new type of DNA glycosylase.

DNA glycosylases were discovered by Tomas Lindahl, who received this year’s Nobel Prize for recognizing that these enzymes removed damaged DNA bases through a process called base-excision repair, the first of about 10 different DNA repair pathways biologists have identified to date.

In base-excision repair, a specific glycosylase molecule binds to DNA at the location of a lesion and causes the damaged base to flip from the inside of the helix to the outside.

The Vanderbilt research shows that a glycosylase called AlkD found in Bacillus cereus does not require base flipping to recognize damaged DNA or repair it. The discovery illustrates that a much broader range of DNA damage can be repaired or removed in ways not previously thought possible.

Read the complete article online at Research News @ Vanderbilt. Find more information in Nature News & Views.

Author: Karen D. Davis