Host: The Japan Radiation Research Society
Co-host: Asian Association for Radiation Research
Helicases are able to catalyze the unwinding of duplex nucleic acid, therefore, helicases play crucial roles in essentially every function involving DNA and RNA, including DNA replication, repair and recombination, and RNA transcription, processing and translation. Helicases are classified into superfamilies, and most helicases are in superfamily I(SFI) and SFII. Members of SFI and SFII contain seven motifs. The S.cerevisiae RRM3, encoding a 5` to 3` DNA helicase, is a member of a helicase SFI that is conversed from yeast to humans. RRM3 was first identified because its absence increases recombination in rDNA genes. It has been suggested that RRM3 is needed for normal fork progression. As a result, the S.cerevisiae RRM3 can promote genome integrity by preventing replication fork stalling. We suppose that S.cerevisiae RRM3 might contributes to restart DNA replication stopped by replication fork stalling which is caused by ionizing radiation (IR). In our study, we have intended to get the human homolog of scRRM3 first, then identify its function in maintenance of genome integrity and resuming the DNA replication. We have identified a partial fragment of human homolog of scRRM3 by blastp analysis through GenBank database. Later we acquired several splicing variants. And we also determined the chromosomal location of the gene.
