Ubiquitination (a.k.a. ubiquitylation) is a protein post-translational modification that typically requires the sequential action of three enzymes: E1 (ubiquitin-activating enzymes), E2 (ubiquitin-conjugating and E3 (ubiquitin ligases) [28]. proteins can target them for proteasomal degradation, or modulate cellular processes including cell cycle progression, transcriptional regulation, DNA repa...

The circadian transcriptional repressors cryptochrome 1 (Cry1) and 2 (Cry2) evolved from photolyases, bacterial light-activated DNA repair enzymes. In this study, we report that while they have lost DNA repair activity, Cry1/2 adapted to protect genomic integrity by responding to DNA damage through posttranslational modification and coordinating the downstream transcriptional response. We demon...

The DNA damage induced by peroxynitrite in isolated bacteriophage PM2 DNA was characterized by means of several repair enzymes with defined substrate specificities. Similar results were obtained with peroxynitrite itself and with 3-morpholinosydnonimine (SIN-1), a compound generating the precursors of peroxynitrite, nitric oxide and superoxide. A high number of base modifications sensitive to F...

Damaged or mismatched bases in DNA can be repaired by base excision repair enzymes (BER) that replace the defective base. Although the detailed molecular structures of many BER enzymes are known, how they colocalize to lesions remains unclear. One hypothesis involves charge transport (CT) along DNA [Yavin et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 3546 (2005)]. In this CT mechanism, electrons a...

Helicases that both unwind and rewind DNA have central roles in DNA repair and genetic recombination. In contrast to unwinding, DNA rewinding by helicases has proved difficult to characterize biochemically because of its thermodynamically downhill nature. Here we use single-molecule assays to mechanically destabilize a DNA molecule and follow, in real time, unwinding and rewinding by two DNA re...

Reactive oxygen species continuously assault the structure of DNA resulting in oxidation and fragmentation of the nucleobases. Both oxidative DNA damage itself and its repair mediate the progression of many prevalent human maladies. The major pathway tasked with removal of oxidative DNA damage, and hence maintaining genomic integrity, is base excision repair (BER). The aphorism that structure o...

Therapeutic manipulation of the gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has recently been proposed as a novel targeted anticancer approach. Here we show that human lung adenocarcinoma tissue expresses high levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) producing enzymes, namely, cystathionine beta-synthase (CBS), cystathionine gamma lyase (CSE) and 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (3-MST), in comparison t...

DNA is constantly exposed to endogenous andexogenous alkylating agents that can modify its bases,resulting in mutagenesis in the absence of DNA repair [1,2]. Alkylation damage is removed by the action of DNA glycosylases, which initiate the base excision repair pathway and protect the sequence information of the genome [3-5]. We have identified a new class of methylpurine DNA glycosylase, desig...

Double-strand DNA breaks are common events in eukaryotic cells, and there are two major pathways for repairing them: homologous recombination (HR) and nonhomologous DNA end joining (NHEJ). The various causes of double-strand breaks (DSBs) result in a diverse chemistry of DNA ends that must be repaired. Across NHEJ evolution, the enzymes of the NHEJ pathway exhibit a remarkable degree of structu...