Mismatch repair and genetic stability in human cells
Journal
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology
Journal Volume
58
Pages
597-603
Date Issued
1993
Author(s)
Abstract
Methyl-directed mismatch repair enhances the genetic stability of Escherichia coli by several orders of magnitude. The reduction in mutability afforded by this system has been attributed both to its role in the strand-specific elimination of DNA biosynthetic errors (Meselson 1988; Modrich 1991) and to function of components of the system as a barrier to recombination between quasi-homologous sequences (Radman 1988; Rayssiguier et al. 1989; Shen and Huang 1989; Petit et al. 1991). Although analysis of molecular roles of mismatch repair proteins in recombination fidelity is at an early stage, a methyl-directed excision reaction has been established that accounts for function of mismatch correction in replication fidelity. This complex reaction, which is summarized in Figure 1, depends on ten activities (Lahue et al. 1989; Cooper et al. 1993) and is characterized by a novel bidirectional capability.
Type
conference paper