Rad51: Watching Single Strands Of DNA Being Prepped For Repair Could Help Fight Breast Cancer
Saturday, October 27, 2012 - 10:30
in Biology & Nature
Watching single strands of DNA being prepped for repair may help researchers understand the origins of breast cancer.In a new study, graduate student Jason Bell imaged individual strands of bacterial DNA as they were coated with a protein called RecA. Studying how this process works gives insights into the "mediator" proteins responsible that facilitate it. In humans, one of those mediators is the protein BRCA2, which is strongly associated with breast cancer. RecA, called Rad51 in humans, helps the single strand of DNA find its complementary, matching strand elsewhere in the chromosome. The RecA protein has to displace another protein, imaginatively named single-strand DNA-binding protein, to get to the DNA. read more