Structural Basis for Molecular Interactions in DNA Damage Tolerance

Abstract

DNA damage tolerance (DTT) is a cell function to avoid replication arrest by DNA damage during DNA replication. DTT includes two pathways, translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) and template-switched DNA synthesis (TS), regulated by various molecular interactions. TLS is transient DNA synthesis using a damaged template by error-prone DNA polymerases specialized for DNA damage (TLS polymerases). TS, in which one newly synthesized strand is utilized as an undamaged template for replication by replicative polymerases, is error-free process. This review article describes recent progress in structural studies of proteins involved in TLS and TS.