title: Base excision repair of DNA in mammalian cells.
abstract: Base excision repair (BER) of DNA corrects a number of spontaneous and environmentally induced genotoxic or miscoding base lesions in a process initiated by DNA glycosylases. An AP endonuclease cleaves at the 5' side of the abasic site and the repair process is subsequently completed via either short patch repair or long patch repair, which largely require different proteins. As one example, the UNG gene encodes both nuclear (UNG2) and mitochondrial (UNG1) uracil DNA glycosylase and prevents accumulation of uracil in the genome. BER is likely to have a major role in preserving the integrity of DNA during evolution and may prevent cancer.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cancer Research and Molecular Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7489, Trondheim, Norway. hans.krokan@medisin.ntnu.no
authors.forename: H E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Krokan
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nilsen
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Skorpen
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Otterlei
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Slupphaug
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D020137:Base Pair Mismatch; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004249:DNA Damage; D045647:DNA Glycosylases; D004260:DNA Repair; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009699:N-Glycosyl Hydrolases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D051981:Uracil-DNA Glycosidase
chemical_list: D045647:DNA Glycosylases; D009699:N-Glycosyl Hydrolases; D051981:Uracil-DNA Glycosidase