The Balancing Act of Ribonucleotides in DNA

Overview

Journal Trends Biochem Sci

Specialty Biochemistry

Date 2016 Mar 22

PMID 26996833

Citations 41

Authors

Susana M Cerritelli

Robert J Crouch

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The abundance of ribonucleotides in DNA remained undetected until recently because they are efficiently removed by the ribonucleotide excision repair (RER) pathway, a process similar to Okazaki fragment (OF) processing after incision by Ribonuclease H2 (RNase H2). All DNA polymerases incorporate ribonucleotides during DNA synthesis. How many, when, and why they are incorporated has been the focus of intense work during recent years by many labs. In this review, we discuss recent advances in ribonucleotide incorporation by eukaryotic DNA polymerases that suggest an evolutionarily conserved role for ribonucleotides in DNA. We also review the data that indicate that removal of ribonucleotides has an important role in maintaining genome stability.

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