DNA Damage & Repair Flashcards
What are the five common types of DNA damage?
Depurination (A & G)
Deamination
Oxidative damage
Pyrimidine dimers (C & T)
Double-strand breaks
What is the most common mutation in the human genome?
C → T
Cytosine is often methylated. When deaminated, methylated C becomes a T
What are the five DNA repair pathways?
Base excision repair
Nucleotide excision repair
Mismatch repair
Non-homologous end-joining
Homologous recombination
Mismatch repair, base excision repair, and nucleotide excision repair are all examples of what repair mechanism?
Excision repair
Mismatch repair is most common in what phase of the cell cycle?
S phase
What is Lynch Syndrome?
A germline mutation of mismatch repair enzymes?
Describe the mechanism of mismatch repair.
Proteins scan the DNA for structural distortions. When a distortion is identified, the proteins identify the new-synthesizing strand based on DNA nicks and selectively remove DNA between the nick and distortion. The excised area is filled by DNA polymerase and sealed by ligase.
How does base excision repair differ from nucleotide excision repair?
In base excision repair, only the damaged purine/pyrimidine base is removed and the DNA backbone remains intact. In nucleotide excision repair, the entire nucleotide and backbone are removed.
Describe the mechanism of base excision repair.
Glycosylases hydrolyze the N-glycosidic bond to remove the base from the DNA backbone. AP endonuclease cuts the backbone and removes the deoxyribose sugar. DNA polymerase then fills the gap and ligase seals nicks.
Nucleotide excision repair is often used to resolve large DNA structural distortions such as…?
Covalent attachment of hydrocarbons
Pyrimidine dimers
Describe the mechanism of nucleotide excision repair.
When distortion within the DNA is identified, helicase (TFIIH) unwinds the section of DNA. The single-strands are stabilized by single-stranded binding proteins. DNA is cleaved on both sides of the damage. DNA polymerase fills the gap and ligase seals the nicks.
What triggers Transcription Coupled Repair?
RNA polymerase II reaches a distortion on the DNA template strand during transcription and is unable to continue. This stalling triggers enzymes to repair the DNA.
Global genome repair is commonly utilized in what types of cells?
Cell that have no undergone differentiation - they don’t know what specific genes will be necessary and want to preserve all
What repair mechanisms can be used to repair double-strand breaks?
Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ)
Homology recombination (HR)
What is the dominant mechanism for double-strand break repairs? When is this mechanism used?
Non-homologous end joining
G1 phase & when sister chromatids are not present