{"id":9467,"date":"2021-02-17T10:55:46","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T10:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=9467"},"modified":"2021-02-17T12:08:02","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:08:02","slug":"studying-bacteria-to-understand-the-functionality-of-dna-repair-proteins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/studying-bacteria-to-understand-the-functionality-of-dna-repair-proteins\/9467\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying bacteria to understand the functionality of DNA-repair proteins"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the fundamental cellular processes which ensures the living of all organisms, from simple bacteria to plants and mammalians, is the replication of our genetic material, the DNA. In the DNA of an organism, all the information is essentially \u2018hard-coded\u2019, thereby ensuring that all replicated copies are the same as the original. Of course, such a fundamental approach has to be heavily controlled to make sure that only correct copies are made. In addition to controlling the crucial feature of regulation directly at the replication level, our genetic material is also exposed to a myriad of environmental stresses as well, which can lead to the genetic material being damaged. In order to cope with this damage, cells have developed evolutionary conserved DNA-repair mechanisms. The importance of this is underlined by the fact that a malfunction in these essential repair machineries leads to cell death in bacteria, whereas in humans it can be the cause of skin cancer. This clearly highlights the fundamental importance of understanding these basic cellular processes at the molecular level and, indeed, of an even more detailed understanding at the atomic level.<\/p>\n
Evolution has come up with a variety of different solutions to screen DNA for errors, but for my team the coupling between different cellular machineries has been a long-standing interest (Burmann et al. 2010). Cells also employ the RNA-Polymerase to drive the transcription process, which transcribes the genomic DNA to RNA which then can be translated into proteins, as a sensor of DNA breaks, or adducts created by UV-light<\/a> and metabolic agents (Truglio et al. 2006). Subsequently, the RNA-Polymerase recruits different DNA-repair proteins that cut out a short stretch around the DNA damage and replace it. The repair process is referred to as \u2018nucleotide excision repair\u2019 (NER). In bacteria, the NER depends on the interplay of the DNA-repair machinery, the so-called \u2018UvrABCD\u2019 proteins, recognising and cleaving damaged DNA in a multistep reaction under ATP consumption, a process which has been known for some time (Sancar and Rupp, 1983).<\/p>\n