Finding the right match fast

Divya Nandakumar; Smita S Patel

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.007

Finding the right match fast

Cell. 2015 Feb 26;160(5):809-811. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.007.

Authors

Divya Nandakumar¹, Smita S Patel²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 675 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
² Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 675 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. Electronic address: patelss@rutgers.edu.

PMID: 25723158
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.007

Abstract

DNA recombinases face the daunting task of locating and pairing up specific sequences among millions of base pairs in a genome, all within about an hour. Qi et al. show that recombinases solve this problem by searching in 8-nt microhomology units, reducing the search space and accelerating the homology search.

Publication types

Comment

MeSH terms

Homologous Recombination*
Rad51 Recombinase / metabolism*
Saccharomyces cerevisiae / metabolism*
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / metabolism*

Substances

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins
RAD51 protein, S cerevisiae
Rad51 Recombinase

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding