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Genome maintenance

A light switch for DNA break repair

Nature Plants volume 9, pages 1178–1179 (2023)Cite this article

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Organisms have developed specialized and intricate mechanisms to cope with environmental threats that depend on their natural habitat and ability to move. Arabidopsis demonstrates an impressive adaptation using cryptochrome 1 to maintain genomic stability through a blue-light-mediated process that involves the recruitment of repair proteins to double-strand breaks.

Plants, being sessile organisms, face constant threats from various challenges that they cannot escape. Drought, flooding, heat and UV radiation are examples of stressors that may not be consistently present or occur at the same intensity but can cause devastating damage. Over time, mechanisms have evolved to prevent and repair such damage, but these mechanisms cost resources that would otherwise be invested in growth, reproduction or other defenses1,2. Therefore, it becomes crucial to activate these protective mechanisms only when necessary. In this issue of Nature Plants, Guo et al. shed light on how plants regulate their defence against UV radiation: when cryptochromes are activated by blue light, they stimulate the recruitment of DNA repair proteins to sites of DNA breaks, facilitating their repair3.

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Fig. 1: Double-strand break repair via SMC5/6 depends on activated CRY.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Lejon E. M. Kralemann & Marcel Tijsterman

  2. Department of Human Genetics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Marcel Tijsterman

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  1. Lejon E. M. Kralemann
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  2. Marcel Tijsterman
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Correspondence to Marcel Tijsterman.

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Kralemann, L.E.M., Tijsterman, M. A light switch for DNA break repair. Nat. Plants 9, 1178–1179 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01462-5

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