title: Holliday junctions in the eukaryotic nucleus: resolution in sight?
abstract: The Holliday junction is a key recombination intermediate whose resolution generates crossovers. Interplay between recombination, repair and replication has moved the Holliday junction to the center stage of nuclear DNA metabolism. Holliday junction resolvases in the eukaryotic nucleus have long eluded identification. The endonucleases Mus81/Mms4-Eme1 and XPF-MEI-9/MUS312 are structurally related to the archaeal resolvase Hjc and were found to be involved in crossover formation in budding yeast and flies, respectively. Although these endonucleases might represent one class of eukaryotic resolvases, their substrate preference opens up the possibility that junctions other than classical Holliday junctions might contribute to crossovers. Holliday junction resolution to non-crossover products can also be achieved topologically, for example, by the action of RecQ-like DNA helicases combined with topoisomerase III.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Microbiology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8665, USA. wdheyer@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: Wolf Dietrich
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Heyer
authors.forename: Kirk T
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Ehmsen
authors.forename: Jachen A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Solinger
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000378:metabolism*; D004260:DNA Repair; D004261:DNA Replication; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010641:Phenotype; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins