Published by Nature of Zhejiang University College of Biological Sciences: The mechanism of genome instability caused by incorrect incorporation of DNA polymerase

Endogenous and exogenous factors can cause various types of DNA damage.

On June 18, 2021, the team of Professor Zhao Ye and Professor Hua Yuejin from the School of Life Sciences of Zhejiang University published a research result entitled "Mechanism of genome instability mediated by human DNA polymerase mu misincorporation" in Nature Communications

The results of previous studies have shown that Pol μ has a phenomenon of "jumping replication" for filling large gap DNA substrates, that is, correctly incorporated nucleotides will skip regular template bases and form Watson with downstream gap bases.

The researchers further studied the process of Pol μ's misincorporation of single-nucleotide gap DNA substrates

In general, the wrong incorporation of DNA polymerase can cause base substitutions or frameshift mutations, and ultimately lead to genome instability

Guo Miao, a doctoral student in the School of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, is the first author of this research paper

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