Base excision repair (BER) is a cellular mechanism, studied in the fields of biochemistry and genetics, that repairs damaged DNA throughout the cell cycle. It is responsible primarily for removing small, non-helix-distorting base lesions from the genome. The related nucleotide excision repair pathway repairs bulky helix-distorting lesions. BER is important for removing damaged bases that could otherwise cause mutations by mispairing or lead to breaks in DNA during replication. BER is initiated by DNA glycosylases, which recognize and remove specific damaged or inappropriate bases, forming AP sites. These are then cleaved by an AP endonuclease. The resulting single-strand break can then be processed by either short-patch (where a single nucleotide is replaced) or long-patch BER (where 2–10 new nucleotides are synthesized).[1]
- ^ Liu Y, Prasad R, Beard WA, Kedar PS, Hou EW, Shock DD, Wilson SH (2007). "Coordination of Steps in Single-nucleotide Base Excision Repair Mediated by Apurinic/Apyrimidinic Endonuclease 1 and DNA Polymerase β". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 282 (18): 13532–13541. doi:10.1074/jbc.M611295200. PMC 2366199. PMID 17355977.