Definition
NER is a complex biochemical mechanism that recognizes alterations in the chemical structure of DNA due to base modification by physical agents (most notably ultraviolet radiation) or endogenous or exogenous chemicals. After recognition of the alteration in the structure of DNA, the damage is removed by excision of the oligonucleotide that contains the damage. The resulting gap is filled in by DNA polymerase using the complementary (undamaged) strand as template and finally ligated. The process is essentially error-free. There are at least 27 polypeptides required to complete the recognition, excision, and gap-filling phases, also referred to as base-excision repair.
Characteristics
NER was initially characterized in E. coliin the 1960s and was identified by the ability of wild-type bacteria to remove ultraviolet light (UV)-induced photoproducts from large molecular weight DNA. The kinetics of this process correlated well with the resumption of DNA replication and led to...
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References
Cleaver JE (1968) Defective repair replication of DNA in xeroderma pigmentosum. Nature 220:652–656
Freidberd et al (eds) (2006) DNA repair and mutagenesis, 2nd edn. ASP Press, pp 267–371
Watson NB et al (2006) Translesion DNA replication proteins as molecular targets for cancer prevention. Cancer Lett 241:13–22
See Also
(2012) Cockayne Syndrome. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of Cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, p 890. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_1246
(2012) Trichothiodystrophy. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of Cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, p 3783. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_5974
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McGregor, W.G. (2017). Nucleotide Excision Repair. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46875-3_4171
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46875-3_4171
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