Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Jun;209(2):357-366.
doi: 10.1534/genetics.118.300958.

Why Is DNA Double Stranded? The Discovery of DNA Excision Repair Mechanisms

Bernard S Strauss  1
Affiliations
Review

Why Is DNA Double Stranded? The Discovery of DNA Excision Repair Mechanisms

Bernard S Strauss. Genetics. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

The persistence of hereditary traits over many generations testifies to the stability of the genetic material. Although the Watson-Crick structure for DNA provided a simple and elegant mechanism for replication, some elementary calculations implied that mistakes due to tautomeric shifts would introduce too many errors to permit this stability. It seemed evident that some additional mechanism(s) to correct such errors must be required. This essay traces the early development of our understanding of such mechanisms. Their key feature is the cutting out of a section of the strand of DNA in which the errors or damage resided, and its replacement by a localized synthesis using the undamaged strand as a template. To the surprise of some of the founders of molecular biology, this understanding derives in large part from studies in radiation biology, a field then considered by many to be irrelevant to studies of gene structure and function. Furthermore, genetic studies suggesting mechanisms of mismatch correction were ignored for almost a decade by biochemists unacquainted or uneasy with the power of such analysis. The collective body of results shows that the double-stranded structure of DNA is critical not only for replication but also as a scaffold for the correction of errors and the removal of damage to DNA. As additional discoveries were made, it became clear that the mechanisms for the repair of damage were involved not only in maintaining the stability of the genetic material but also in a variety of biological phenomena for increasing diversity, from genetic recombination to the immune response.

Keywords: DNA excision repair; base excision repair; double stranded; double-strand break repair; mismatch repair.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Common steps in excision repair mechanisms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Auerbach C., Robson J. M., 1947. The production of mutations by chemical substances. Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. Biol. 62: 271–283. - PubMed
    1. Auerbach C., Robson J. M., Carr J. G., 1947. The chemical production of mutations. Science 105: 243–247. 10.1126/science.105.2723.243 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Avery O. T., Macleod C. M., McCarty M., 1944. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types: induction of transformation by a desoxyribonucleic acid fraction isolated from pneumococcus type III. J. Exp. Med. 79: 137–158. 10.1084/jem.79.2.137 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bedford J. S., Dewey W. C., 2002. Radiation research society. 1952–2002. Historical and current highlights in radiation biology: has anything important been learned by irradiating cells? Radiat. Res. 158: 251–291. 10.1667/0033-7587(2002)158[0251:HACHIR]2.0.CO;2 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Benzer S., Freese E., 1958. Induction of specific mutations with 5-Bromouracil. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 44: 112–119. 10.1073/pnas.44.2.112 - DOI - PMC - PubMed