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Visualizing the repair of broken DNA in living cells reveals a new mechanism for DNA homology search

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We engineered a tagged version of the yeast Rad51 recombinase and used this tool to monitor DNA double-strand break repair in living cells. We could observe how a broken DNA fragment can scout the nucleus to identify a similar sequence and use it as a template for repair.

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Fig. 1: A functional Rad51–GFP construct unveils the dynamics of Rad51 filaments.

References

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This is a summary of: Liu, S. et al. In vivo tracking of functionally tagged Rad51 unveils a robust strategy of homology search. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-023-01065-w (2023).

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Visualizing the repair of broken DNA in living cells reveals a new mechanism for DNA homology search. Nat Struct Mol Biol 30, 1409–1410 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-023-01068-7

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