It was revealed that phosphorylation of the DNA repair enzyme PNKP at threonine 118 by CDK is required for DNA replication through the gap filling of Okazaki fragments.
X-ray crystallography reveals that the Dna2 nuclease-helicase contains a long tunnel through which single-stranded DNA threads, and an allosteric mechanism for displacing the DNA-binding protein Rpa that restricts cleavage to the proper polarity.
Ruben Rosas, Rhiannon R Aguilar ... Mair EA Churchill
The lysine/glutamic acid/arginine region in chromatin assembly factor (CAF-1) forms a long single alpha-helix DNA-binding domain, facilitating the recognition of tetrasome-length DNA and linking functional domains within the CAF-1 architecture for efficient tetrasome assembly after DNA synthesis.
Rajika L Perera, Rubben Torella ... Luca Pellegrini
The details of how the enzyme DNA polymerase α initiates the polymerization of nucleotides in DNA replication, a critical step in the synthesis of new chromosomal DNA, have been revealed in atomic detail.
DePARylation is essential for cell survival and thus poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) expression correlates with cytotoxicity induced by PARG inhibition, which will benefit the development of PARG inhibitors for cancer treatment.
After DNA replication, nucleosomes are assembled by two histone chaperone complexes each bound to an H3-H4 histone dimer, suggesting the feasibility for a semi-conservative mode of epigenome inheritance.
Systematic analyses of DNA replication machinery components in human cells reveal a requirement of MCM-dependent de novo loading or mobilization of cohesin at replication forks in establishing sister-chromatid cohesion.
Roxana E Georgescu, Grant D Schauer ... Mike E O'Donnell
The different polymerases at eukaryotic replication forks achieve their asymmetric placement on the leading and lagging strands through exclusion processes that prevent their function on the 'wrong' strand.
Analyzing single molecules reveals that Pif1 family helicases periodically patrol DNA, which may explain this enzyme's ability to suppress genome instability at G-quadruplex motifs and transcriptional RNA-DNA hybrids (R-loops).
