DNA Repair Mechanisms

Every time a cell divides or encounters radiation, chemicals, or ordinary metabolic stress, its DNA sustains damage that, left uncorrected, can scramble the genetic instructions governing normal cell behavior. Cells have evolved an intricate surveillance and repair network — coordinated by signaling proteins such as the ATM and ATR kinases, histone H2AX, and the machinery of homologous recombination — that detects lesions, halts the cell cycle at checkpoints, and stitches broken strands back together before replication proceeds. When these mechanisms fail or are overwhelmed, the resulting genomic instability is a driving force behind cancer and a growing number of hereditary diseases. Researchers are actively working to map how repair pathways are chosen and coordinated in different cellular contexts, and how tumors exploit defects in this system — questions that are opening new strategies for targeted cancer therapies that deliberately push damaged cancer cells past the point of no repair.

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Keywords

DNA DamageRepairGenomic InstabilityATM and ATR KinasesHomologous RecombinationCell Cycle Checkpoints