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DNA repair

How to accurately bypass damage

Nature volume 465, pages 1023–1024 (2010)Cite this article

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Ultraviolet radiation can cause cancer through DNA damage — specifically, by linking adjacent thymine bases. Crystal structures show how the enzyme DNA polymerase η accurately bypasses such lesions, offering protection.

In this issue, two papers — by Silverstein et al.1 (page 1039) and Biertümpfel et al.2 (page 1044) — describe the crystal structure of the enzyme DNA polymerase η (Polη), which can efficiently and accurately overcome DNA damage caused by ultraviolet radiation. These data are of particular interest because they elucidate how the inactivation of Polη leads to XPV, a variant form of xeroderma pigmentosum — a type of severe skin cancer in humans.

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Figure 1: Accurate lesion bypass by Polη.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Suse Broyde is in the Department of Biology, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA. broyde@nyu.edu,

    Suse Broyde

  2. Dinshaw J. Patel is in the Structural Biology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10065, USA. pateld@mskcc.org,

    Dinshaw J. Patel

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  1. Suse Broyde
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  2. Dinshaw J. Patel
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Broyde, S., Patel, D. How to accurately bypass damage. Nature 465, 1023–1024 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4651023a

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