Nucleotide Excision Repair in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Its Relationship to Specialized Mitotic Recombination and RNA Polymerase II Basal Transcription

Nucleotide excision repair (NER) in eukaryotes is a biochemically complex process involving multiple gene products. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an informative model for this process. Multiple genes and in some cases gene products that are indispensable for NER have been isolated from this organism. Homologues of many of these yeast genes are structurally and functionally conserved in higher organisms, including humans. The yeast Rad1/Rad10 heterodimeric protein complex is an endonuclease that is believed to participate in damage-specific incision of DNA during NER. This endonuclease is also required for specialized types of recombination. The products of the RAD3, SSL2(RAD25) SSL1 and TFB1 genes have dual roles in NER and in RNA polymerase II-dependent basal transcription.