The biochemistry of eukaryotic homologous recombination caught fire with the discovery that Rad51 is the eukaryotic homolog of the bacterial RecA and T4 UvsX proteins; and this field is still hot. The core reaction of homologous recombination, homology search and DNA strand invasion, along with the proteins catalyzing it, are conserved throughout evolution in principle. However, the increased c...

Homologous DNA recombination levels were measured in normal and spontaneously immortalized murine and human fibroblasts, and in a number of primate and murine established fibroblast cell lines. Immortal cell lines and tumor-derived clones homologously recombined extrachromosomal plasmid substrates at frequencies approximately 100-fold higher than did normal cells. To further explore the mechani...

Replications forks are routinely hindered by different endogenous stresses. Because homologous recombination plays a pivotal role in the reactivation of arrested replication forks, defects in homologous recombination reveal the initial endogenous stress(es). Homologous recombination-defective cells consistently exhibit a spontaneously reduced replication speed, leading to mitotic extra centroso...

Evolution and the enormous diversity among terrestrial organisms are caused by mutation, transduction, conjugation, and recombination. Recombination is the major and most basic factor that increases and decreases chromosomal and genetic components. I would like to review studies on homologous and non-homologous recombination, meiotic and somatic recombination, and the applications of basic mech...

In mammalian cells, chromosomal double-strand breaks are efficiently repaired, yet little is known about the relative contributions of homologous recombination and illegitimate recombination in the repair process. In this study, we used a loss-of-function assay to assess the repair of double-strand breaks by homologous and illegitimate recombination. We have used a hamster cell line engineered ...

Homologous recombination between ectopic sites is rare in higher eukaryotes. To test whether double-strand breaks (DSBs) can induce ectopic recombination, transgenic tobacco plants harboring two unlinked, nonfunctional homologous parts of a kanamycin resistance gene were produced. To induce homologous recombination between the recipient locus (containing an I-SceI site within homologous sequenc...

Werner syndrome is a rare disorder that manifests as premature aging and age-related diseases. WRN is the gene mutated in WS, and is one of five human RecQ helicase family members. WS cells exhibit genomic instability and altered proliferation, and in vitro studies suggest that WRN has a role in suppressing homologous recombination. However, more recent studies propose that other RecQ helicases...