title: Hide and seek: How do DNA glycosylases locate oxidatively damaged DNA bases amidst a sea of undamaged bases?
abstract: The first step of the base excision repair (BER) pathway responsible for removing oxidative DNA damage utilizes DNA glycosylases to find and remove the damaged DNA base. How glycosylases find the damaged base amidst a sea of undamaged bases has long been a question in the BER field. Single molecule total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (SM TIRFM) experiments have allowed for an exciting look into this search mechanism and have found that DNA glycosylases scan along the DNA backbone in a bidirectional and random fashion. By comparing the search behavior of bacterial glycosylases from different structural families and with varying substrate specificities, it was found that glycosylases search for damage by periodically inserting a wedge residue into the DNA stack as they redundantly search tracks of DNA that are 450-600bp in length. These studies open up a wealth of possibilities for further study in real time of the interactions of DNA glycosylases and other BER enzymes with various DNA substrates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, The Markey Center for Molecular Genetics, The University of Vermont, 95 Carrigan Drive, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
authors.forename: Andrea J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, The Markey Center for Molecular Genetics, The University of Vermont, 95 Carrigan Drive, Burlington, VT 05405, USA. Electronic address: Susan.Wallace@uvm.edu.
authors.forename: Susan S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Wallace
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D004249:DNA Damage; D045647:DNA Glycosylases / Q000378:metabolism*; D004260:DNA Repair; D005820:Genetic Testing; D006801:Humans; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004247:DNA; D045647:DNA Glycosylases
keywords: Base excision repair; DNA glycosylases; Glycosylase diffusion; Search for radiation damage; Single molecule fluorescence; Wedge residue