Base excision repair articles within Nature

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• Article | 27 April 2022

  Breakage of cytoplasmic chromosomes by pathological DNA base excision repair

  DNA damage during chromothripsis is caused by deoxyinosine formation on accumulated RNA–DNA hybrids in micronuclei that are then recognized by N-methyl-purine DNA glycosylase and cleaved by apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease.

  • Shangming Tang
  • , Ema Stokasimov
  •  & David Pellman

• Article | 24 November 2021

  FAM72A antagonizes UNG2 to promote mutagenic repair during antibody maturation

  FAM72A differentially controls mutation rates by regulating uracil processing at different stages of the cell cycle, thereby regulating somatic hypermutation and class-switch recombination in B cells.

  • Yuqing Feng
  • , Conglei Li
  •  & Alberto Martin

• Letter | 28 October 2015

  The DNA glycosylase AlkD uses a non-base-flipping mechanism to excise bulky lesions

  Crystal structures of the DNA glycosylase AlkD with DNA containing various modified bases show that neither substrate recognition nor catalysis use a base-flipping mechanism; instead, AlkD scans the phosphodeoxyribose backbone for increased cationic charge imparted by the alkylated base, and then uses the positive charge to facilitate cleavage of the glycosidic bond, thus explaining the specificity of AlkD for cationic lesions.

  • Elwood A. Mullins
  • , Rongxin Shi
  •  & Brandt F. Eichman