Organisms such as yeast and humans are capable of both nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR), but bacteria have typically been assumed to be capable only of HR. A recent study shows that mycobacteria accomplish NHEJ using just two proteins (homologs of the eukaryotic Ku and DNA ligase IV), whereas eukaryotes require many factors.
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Weller, G., Brandt, V. & Roth, D. Doing more with less in bacterial DNA repair. Nat Struct Mol Biol 11, 1158–1159 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1204-1158
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1204-1158
