Inadequate DNA repair

DNA lesions may result from the formation of DNA adducts (i.e., covalent modification of DNA by chemicals), or by the action of agents such as radiation that may produce strand breaks or modified nucleotides within the DNA molecule. These DNA lesions are repaired through several mechanistically distinct pathways that can be categorized as follows:

1. Damage reversal acts to reverse the damage without breaking any bonds within the sugar phosphate backbone of the DNA. The most prominent enzymes associated with damage reversal are photolyases (Sancar, 2003) that can repair UV dimers in some organisms, and O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT) (Pegg 2011) and oxidative demethylases (Sundheim et al., 2008), which can repair some types of alkylated bases.
2. Excision repair involves the removal of a damaged nucleotide(s) through cleavage of the sugar phosphate backbone followed by re-synthesis of DNA within the resultant gap. Excision repair of DNA lesions can be mechanistically divided into: 

   a) Base excision repair (BER) (Dianov and Hübscher, 2013), in which the damaged base is removed by a damage-specific glycosylase prior to incision of the phosphodiester backbone at the resulting abasic site. This leads to an intermediate that contains a DNA strand break, whereby DNA ligase is then recruited to seal the ends of the DNA.

   b) Nucleotide excision repair (NER) (Schärer, 2013), in which the DNA strand containing the damaged nucleotide is incised at sites several nucleotides 5’ and 3’ to the site of damage, and a polynucleotide containing the damaged nucleotide is removed prior to DNA resynthesis within the resultant gap and sealing of the ends by DNA ligase.  

   c) Mismatch repair (MMR) (Li et al., 2016)  which does not act on DNA lesions but does recognize mispaired bases resulting from replication errors. In MMR the strand containing the misincorporated base is removed prior to DNA resynthesis.

   The major pathway that removes oxidative DNA damage is base excision repair (BER), which can be either monofunctional or bifunctional; in mammals, a specific DNA glycosylase (OGG1: 8-Oxoguanine glycosylase) is responsible for excision of 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) and other oxidative lesions (Hu et al., 2005; Scott et al., 2014; Whitaker et al., 2017). We note that long-patch BER is used for the repair of clustered oxidative lesions, which uses several enzymes from DNA replication pathways (Klungland and Lindahl, 1997). These pathways are described in detail in various reviews e.g., (Whitaker et al., 2017). 

3. Single strand break repair (SSBR) involves different proteins and enzymes depending on the origin of the SSB (e.g., produced as an intermediate in excision repair or due to direct chemical insult) but the same general steps of repair are taken for all SSBs: detection, DNA end processing, synthesis, and ligation (Caldecott, 2014). Poly-ADP-ribose polymerase1 (PARP1) detects and binds unscheduled SSBs (i.e., not deliberately induced during excision repair) and synthesizes PAR as a signal to the downstream factors in repair. PARP1 is not required to initiate SSBR of BER intermediates. The XRCC1 protein complex is then recruited to the site of damage where a common DNA intermediate as BER was generated, and acts as a scaffold for proteins and enzymes required for repair. Depending on the nature of the damaged termini of the DNA strand, different enzymes are required for end processing to generate the substrates that DNA polymerase β (Polβ; short patch repair) or Pol δ/ε (long patch repair) can bind to synthesize over the gap, although end processing is generally done by polynucleotide kinase. Synthesis in long-patch repair displaces a single stranded flap which is excised by flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1). In short-patch repair, the XRCC1/Lig3α complex joins the two ends after synthesis. In long-patch repair, the PCNA/Lig1 complex ligates the ends. (Caldecott, 2014). 
4. Double strand break repair (DSBR) is necessary to preserve genomic integrity when breaks occur in both strands of a DNA molecule. There are two major pathways for DSBR: homologous recombination (HR), which operates primarily during the S phase of dividing cell types, and nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ), which can function in both dividing and non-dividing cell types. No repair occurs in the M phase (Teruaki Iyama and David M. Wilson III, 2013). DNA repair in mitosis is controversial (Mladenov et al., 2023).

Complex lesions can be created by a single mutagen and can be more difficult to repair, as the mechanism behind how different repair pathways cooperate to address this is still unclear (Aleksandrov et al., 2018). In higher eukaryotes such as mammals, NHEJ is usually the preferred pathway for DNA DSBR. Its use, however, is dependent on the cell type, the gene locus, and the nuclease platform (Miyaoka et al., 2016). The use of NHEJ is also dependent on the cell cycle; NHEJ is generally not the pathway of choice when the cell is in the late S or G2 phase of the cell cycle, or in mitotic cells when the sister chromatid is directly adjacent to the double-strand break (DSB) (Lieber et al., 2003). In these cases, the HR pathway is commonly used for repair of DSBs. Despite this, NHEJ is still used more commonly than HR in human cells. Classical NHEJ (C-NHEJ) is the most common NHEJ repair mechanism, but alternative NHEJ (alt-NHEJ) can also occur, especially in the absence of C-NHEJ and HR.

The process of C-NHEJ in humans requires at least seven core proteins: Ku70, Ku86, DNA-dependent protein kinase complex (DNA-PK_cs ), Artemis, X-ray cross-complementing protein 4 (XRCC4), XRCC4-like factor (XLF), and DNA ligase IV (Boboila et al., 2012). When DSBs occur, the Ku proteins, which have a high affinity for DNA ends, will bind to the break site and form a heterodimer. This protects the DNA from exonucleolytic attack and acts to recruit DNA-PK_cs, the catalytic subunit, thus forming a trimeric complex on the ends of the DNA strands. Alternative NHEJ, or alt NHEJ, uses small similar sequences in two broken DNA ends to join them together. Unlike the usual repair method (cNHEJ), aNHEJ doesn't need specific proteins like LIG4 and KU. Instead, it relies on the MRN complex to process the breaks. However, alt NHEJ tends to cause mutations by adding or removing bits of DNA during the repair (Chaudhuri and Nussenzweig, 2017). The kinase activity of DNA-PK_cs is then triggered, causing DNA-PK_cs to auto-phosphorylate and thereby lose its kinase activity; the now phosphorylated DNA-PK_cs dissociates from the DNA-bound Ku proteins. The free DNA-PK_cs phosphorylates Artemis, an enzyme that possesses 5’-3’ exonuclease and endonuclease activity in the presence of DNA-PK_cs and ATP. Artemis is responsible for ‘cleaning up’ the ends of the DNA. For 5’ overhangs, Artemis nicks the overhang, generally leaving a blunt duplex end. For 3’ overhangs, Artemis will often leave a four- or five-nucleotide single stranded overhang (Pardo et al., 2009; Fattah et al., 2010; Lieber et al., 2010). Next, the XLF and XRCC4 proteins form a complex which makes a channel to bind DNA and aligns the ends for efficient ligation via DNA ligase IV (Hammel et al., 2011).

The process of alt-NHEJ is less well understood than C-NHEJ and is a lower fidelity mechanism.  Alt-NHEJ is known to involve slightly different core proteins than C-NHEJ and required microhomology repeats, but the steps of the pathway are essentially the same between the two processes (reviewed in Chiruvella et al., 2013). It is established, however, that alt-NHEJ is more error-prone in nature than C-NHEJ, which contributes to incorrect DNA repair. Alt-NHEJ is thus considered primarily to be a backup repair mechanism (reviewed in Chiruvella et al., 2013). 

In contrast to NHEJ, HR takes advantage of similar or identical DNA sequences to repair DSBs and is not error-prone (Sung and Klein, 2006). The initiating step of HR is the creation of a 3’ single strand DNA (ss-DNA) overhang. Combinases such as RecA and Rad51 then bind to the ss-DNA overhang, and other accessory factors, including Rad54, help recognize and invade the homologous region on another DNA strand. From there, DNA polymerases are able to elongate the 3’ invading single strand and resynthesize the broken DNA strand using the corresponding sequence on the homologous strand.

Fidelity of DNA Repair

Most DNA repair pathways are extremely efficient. However, in principal, all DNA repair pathways can be overwhelmed when the DNA lesion burden exceeds the capacity of a given DNA repair pathway to recognize and remove the lesion. Exceeded repair capacity may lead to toxicity or mutagenesis following DNA damage. Apart from extremely high DNA lesion burden, inadequate repair may arise through several different specific mechanisms. For example, during repair of DNA containing O6-alkylguanine adducts, AGT irreversibly binds a single O6-alkylguanine lesion and as a result is inactivated (this is termed suicide inactivation, as its own action causes it to become inactivated). Thus, the capacity of AGT to carry out alkylation repair can become rapidly saturated when the DNA repair rate exceeds the de novo synthesis of AGT (Pegg, 2011).

A second mechanism relates to cell specific differences in the cellular levels or activity of some DNA repair proteins. For example, XPA is an essential component of the NER complex. The level of XPA that is active in NER is low in the testes, which may reduce the efficiency of NER in testes as compared to other tissues (Köberle et al., 1999). Likewise, both NER and BER have been reported to be deficient in cells lacking functional p53 (Adimoolam and Ford, 2003; Hanawalt et al., 2003; Seo and Jung, 2004). A third mechanism relates to the importance of the DNA sequence context of a lesion in its recognition by DNA repair enzymes. For example, 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) is repaired primarily by BER; the lesion is initially acted upon by a bifunctional glycosylase, OGG1, which carries out the initial damage recognition and excision steps of 8-oxoG repair. However, the rate of excision of 8-oxoG is modulated strongly by both chromatin components (Menoni et al., 2012) and DNA sequence context (Allgayer et al., 2013) leading to significant differences in the repair of lesions situated in different chromosomal locations.

DNA repair is also remarkably error-free. However, misrepair can arise during repair under some circumstances. DSBR is notably error prone, particularly when breaks are processed through NHEJ, during which partial loss of genome information is common at the site of the double strand break (Iyama and Wilson, 2013). This is because NHEJ rejoins broken DNA ends without the use of extensive homology; instead, it uses the microhomology present between the two ends of the DNA strand break to ligate the strand back into one. When the overhangs are not compatible, however, indels (insertion or deletion events), duplications, translocations, and inversions in the DNA can occur. These changes in the DNA may lead to significant issues within the cell, including alterations in the gene determinants for cellular fatality (Moore et al., 1996).

Activation of mutagenic DNA repair pathways to withstand cellular or replication stress either from endogenous or exogenous sources can promote cellular viability, albeit at a cost of increased genome instability and mutagenesis (Fitzgerald et al., 2017). These salvage DNA repair pathways including, Break-induced Replication (BIR) and Microhomology-mediated Break-induced Replication (MMBIR). BIR repairs one-ended DSBs and has been extensively studied in yeast as well as in mammalian systems. BIR and MMBIR are linked with heightened levels of mutagenesis, chromosomal rearrangements and ensuing genome instability (Deem et al., 2011; Sakofsky et al., 2015; Saini et al., 2017; Kramara et al., 2018). In mammalian genomes BIR-like synthesis has been proposed to be involved in late stage Mitotic DNA Synthesis (MiDAS) that predominantly occurs at so-called Common Fragile Sites (CFSs) and maintains telomere length under s conditions of replication stress that serve to promote cell viability (Minocherhomji et al., 2015; Bhowmick et al., 2016; Dilley et al., 2016).       

Misrepair may also occur through other repair pathways. Excision repair pathways require the resynthesis of DNA and rare DNA polymerase errors during gap resynthesis will result in mutations (Brown et al., 2011). Errors may also arise during gap resynthesis when the strand that is being used as a template for DNA synthesis contains DNA lesions (Kozmin and Jinks-Robertson, 2013). In addition, it has been shown that sequences that contain tandemly repeated sequences, such as CAG triplet repeats, are subject to expansion during gap resynthesis that occurs during BER of 8-oxoG damage (Liu et al., 2009).

There is no test guideline for this event. The event is usually inferred from measuring the retention of DNA adducts or the creation of mutations as a measure of lack of repair or incorrect repair. These ‘indirect’ measures of its occurrence are crucial to determining the mechanisms of genotoxic chemicals and for regulatory applications (i.e., determining the best approach for deriving a point of departure). More recently, a fluorescence-based multiplex flow-cytometric host cell reactivation assay (FM-HCR) has been developed to directly measure the ability of human cells to repair plasmid reporters (Nagel et al., 2014).

Indirect Measurement

In somatic and spermatogenic cells, measurement of DNA repair is usually inferred by measuring DNA adduct formation/removal. Insufficient repair is inferred from the retention of adducts and from increasing adduct formation with dose. Insufficient DNA repair is also measured by the formation of increased numbers of mutations and alterations in mutation spectrum. The methods will be specific to the type of DNA adduct that is under study.

Some EXAMPLES are given below for alkylated DNA.

DOSE-RESPONSE CURVE FOR ALKYL ADDUCTS/MUTATIONS: It is important to consider that some adducts are not mutagenic at all because they are very effectively repaired. Others are effectively repaired, but if these repair processes become overwhelmed mutations begin to occur. The relationship (shape of dose-response curve) between exposure to mutagenic agents and mutations provide an indication of whether the removal of adducts occurs, and whether it is more efficient at low doses. Sub-linear dose-response curves (hockey stick or j-shape curves) for mutation induction indicates that adducts are not converted to mutations at low doses. This suggests the effective repair of adducts at low doses, followed by saturation of repair at higher doses (Clewell et al., 2019). Thus, measurement of a clear point of inflection in the dose-response curve for mutations suggests that repair does occur, at least to some extent, at low dosees but that reduced repair efficiency arises above the inflection point. A lack of increase in mutation frequencies (i.e., flat line for dose-response) for a compound showing a dose-dependent increase in adducts would imply that the adducts formed are either not mutagenic or are effectively repaired.

RETENTION OF ALKYL ADDUCTS: Alkylated DNA can be found in cells long after exposure has occurred. This indicates that repair has not effectively removed the adducts. For example, DNA adducts have been measured in hamster and rat spermatogonia several days following exposure to alkylating agents, indicating lack of repair (Seiler et al., 1997; Scherer et al., 1987).

MUTATION SPECTRUM: Shifts in mutation spectrum (i.e., the specific changes in the DNA sequence) following a chemical exposure (relative to non-exposed mutation spectrum) indicates that repair was not operating effectively to remove specific types of lesions. The shift in mutation spectrum is indicative of the types of DNA lesions (target nucleotides and DNA sequence context) that were not repaired. For example, if a greater proportion of mutations occur at guanine nucleotides in exposed cells, it can be assumed that the chemical causes DNA adducts on guanine that are not effectively repaired.

Direct Measurement

Nagel et al. (2014) we developed a fluorescence-based multiplex flow-cytometric host cell reactivation assay (FM-HCR) to measures the ability of human cells to repair plasmid reporters. These reporters contain different types and amounts of DNA damage and can be used to measure repair through by NER, MMR, BER, NHEJ, HR and MGMT.

Please refer to the table below for additional details and methodologies for detecting DNA damage and repair.

The retention of adducts has been directly measured in many different types of eukaryotic somatic cells (in vitro and in vivo). In male germ cells, work has been done on hamsters, rats and mice. The accumulation of mutation and changes in mutation spectrum has been measured in mice and human cells in culture. Theoretically, saturation of DNA repair occurs in every species (prokaryotic and eukaryotic). The principles of this work were established in prokaryotic models. Nagel et al. (2014) have produced an assay that directly measures DNA repair in human cells in culture.

NHEJ is primarily used by vertebrate multicellular eukaryotes, but it also been observed in plants. Furthermore, it has recently been discovered that some bacteria (Matthews et al., 2014) and yeast (Emerson et al., 2016) also use NHEJ. In terms of invertebrates, most lack the core DNA-PK_cs and Artemis proteins; they accomplish end joining by using the RA50:MRE11:NBS1 complex (Chen et al., 2001).  HR occurs naturally in eukaryotes, bacteria, and some viruses (Bhatti et al., 2016).

Taxonomic applicability: Inadequate DNA repair is applicable to all species, as they all contain DNA (White & Vijg, 2016).  

Life stage applicability: This key event is not life stage specific as any life stage can have poor repair, though as individuals age their repair process become less effective (Gorbunova & Seluanov, 2016). 

Sex applicability: There is no evidence of sex-specificity for this key event, with initial rate of DNA repair not significantly different between sexes (Trzeciak et al., 2008). 

Evidence for perturbation by a stressor: Multiple studies demonstrate that inadequate DNA repair can occur as a result of stressors such as ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, as well as chemical agents (Kuhne et al., 2005; Rydberg et al., 2005; Dahle et al., 2008; Seager et al., 2012; Wilhelm, 2014; O’Brien et al., 2015).  

Adimoolam, S. & J.M. Ford (2003), "p53 and regulation of DNA damage recognition during nucleotide excision repair" DNA Repair (Amst), 2(9): 947-54.

Aleksandrov, Radoslav et al. (2018), “Protein Dynamics in Complex DNA Lesions.” Molecular cell,69(6): 1046-1061.e5. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2018.02.016 

Allgayer, J. et al. (2013), "Modulation of base excision repair of 8-oxoguanine by the nucleotide sequence", Nucleic Acids Res, 41(18): 8559-8571. Doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt620.

Beranek, D.T. (1990), "Distribution of methyl and ethyl adducts following alkylation with monofunctional alkylating agents", Mutation Research, 231(1): 11-30. Doi: 10.1016/0027-5107(90)90173-2.

Bhatti, A. et al., (2016), “Homologous Recombination Biology.”, Encyclopedia Britannica.

Bhowmick, R., S. et al. (2016), "RAD52 Facilitates Mitotic DNA Synthesis Following Replication Stress", Mol Cell, 64:1117-1126. Doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2016.10.037.

Biedermann, A. K. et al. (1991), “SCID mutation in mice confers hypersensitivity to ionizing radiation and a deficiency in DNA double-strand break repair”, Cell Biology, 88(4): 1394-7. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.88.4.1394.

Boboila, C., F. W. Alt & B. Schwer. (2012), “Classical and alternative end-joining pathways for repair of lymphocyte-specific and general DNA double-strand breaks.” Adv Immunol, 116, 1-49. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-394300-2.00001-6

Bronstein, S.M. et al. (1991), "Toxicity, mutagenicity, and mutational spectra of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea in human cell lines with different DNA repair phenotypes", Cancer Research, 51(19): 5188-5197.

Bronstein, S.M. et al. (1992), "Efficient repair of O6-ethylguanine, but not O4-ethylthymine or O2-ethylthymine, is dependent upon O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase and nucleotide excision repair activities in human cells", Cancer Research, 52(7): 2008-2011. 

Brown, J.A. et al. (2011), "Efficiency and fidelity of human DNA polymerases λ and β during gap-filling DNA synthesis", DNA Repair (Amst)., 10(1):24-33.

Butterworth, E. B. et al., (1987), A protocol and guide for the in vitro rat hepatocyte DNA-repair assay. Mutation Research. 189, 113-21. Doi: 10.1016/0165-1218(87)90017-6.

Caldecott, K. W. (2014), "DNA single-strand break repair", Exp Cell Res, 329(1): 2-8.

Chaudhuri, R.A. and Nussenzweig, A. (2017), “The multifaceted roles of PARP1 in DNA repair and chromatin remodelling”. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 18, 610–621. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2017.53   

Chen, L. et al., (2001), Promotion of DNA ligase IV-catalyzed DNA end-joining by the Rad50/Mre11/Xrs2 and Hdf1/Hdf2 complexes. Mol Cell. 8(5), 1105-15.

Chiruvella, K. K., Z. Liang & T. E. Wilson, (2013), Repair of Double-Strand Breaks by End Joining. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 5(5):127-57. Doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a012757.

Clewell, R. A. et al. (2019). “Dose-dependence of chemical carcinogenicity: Biological mechanisms for thresholds and implications for risk assessment”. Chem Biol Interact. 2019 Mar 1;301:112-127. doi: 10.1016/j.cbi.2019.01.025. 

Corneo, B. et al., 2007, "Rag mutations reveal robust alternative end joining”. Nature 449, 483–486 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06168   

Dahle, J., et al. (2008), “Overexpression of human OGG1 in mammalian cells decreases ultraviolet A induced mutagenesis”, Cancer Letters, Vol.267, Elsevier, Amsterdam, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2008.03.002. 

Deem, A. et al. (2011), "Break-Induced Replication Is Highly Inaccurate.", PLoS Biol.  9:e1000594. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000594.

Dianov, G.L. & U. Hübscher (2013), "Mammalian base excision repair: the forgotten archangel", Nucleic Acids Res., 41(6):3483-90. Doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt076.

Dilley, R.L. et al.  Greenberg (2016), "Break-induced telomere synthesis underlies alternative telomere maintenance", Nature, 539:54-58. Doi: 10.1038/nature20099.

Douglas, G.R. et al.  (1995), "Temporal and molecular characteristics of mutations induced by ethylnitrosourea in germ cells isolated from seminiferous tubules and in spermatozoa of lacZ transgenic mice", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 92(16):7485-7489. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.16.7485.

Dunkenberger, Logan et al. (2022), “Comet Assay for the Detection of Single and Double-Strand DNA Breaks.” Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2422: 263-269. doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-1948-3_18 

Fattah, F. et al., (2010), Ku regulates the non-homologous end joining pathway choice of DNA double-strand break repair in human somatic cells. PLoS Genet, 6(2), doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000855

Fitzgerald, D.M., P.J. Hastings, and S.M. Rosenberg (2017), "Stress-Induced Mutagenesis: Implications in Cancer and Drug Resistance", Ann Rev Cancer Biol, 1:119-140. Doi: 10.1146/annurev-cancerbio-050216-121919.

Gorbunova, V. and A. Seluanov. (2016), “DNA double strand break repair, aging and the chromatin connection”, Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis, Vol.788/1-2, Elsevier, Amsterdam, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mrfmmm.2016.02.004. 

Hammel, M. et al., (2011), XRCC4 protein interactions with XRCC4-like factor (XLF) create an extended grooved scaffold for DNA ligation and double strand break repair. J Biol Chem, 286(37), 32638-32650. doi:10.1074/jbc.M111.272641.

Hanawalt, P.C., J.M. Ford and D.R. Lloyd (2003), "Functional characterization of global genomic DNA repair and its implications for cancer", Mutation Research, 544(2-3): 107–114.

Harbach, P. R. et al., (1989), “The in vitro unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) assay in rat primary hepatocytes”, Mutation Research, 216(2):101-10. Doi:10.1016/0165-1161(89)90010-1.

Iyama, T. and D.M. Wilson III (2013), "DNA repair mechanisms in dividing and non-dividing cells", DNA Repair, 12(8): 620– 636.

Jeffrey, M. A.& M. G. Williams, (2000), “Lack of DNA-damaging Activity of Five Non-nutritive Sweeteners in the Rat Hepatocyte/DNA Repair Assay”,  Food and Chemical Toxicology, 38: 335-338. Doi: 10.1016/S0278-6915(99)00163-5.

Köberle, B. et al. (1999), "Defective repair of cisplatin-induced DNA damage caused by reduced XPA protein in testicular germ cell tumours", Curr. Biol., 9(5):273-6. Doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(99)80118-3.

Kozmin, S.G. & S. Jinks-Robertson S. (2013), “The mechanism of nucleotide excision repair-mediated UV-induced mutagenesis in nonproliferating cells”, Genetics, 193(3): 803-17. Doi: 10.1534/genetics.112.147421.

Kramara, J., B. Osia, and A. Malkova (2018), "Break-Induced Replication: The Where, The Why, and The How", Trends Genet, 34:518-531. Doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2018.04.002.

Kuhne, M., G. Urban and M. Lo (2005), "DNA Double-Strand Break Misrejoining after Exposure of Primary Human Fibroblasts to CK Characteristic X Rays, 29 kVp X Rays and 60Co γ Rays", Radiation. Research, Vol.164/5, Radiation Research Society, Indianapolis, https://doi.org/10.1667/RR3461.1. 

Larsen, K.H. et al. (1982), “DNA repair assays as tests for environmental mutagens: A report of the U.S. EPA gene-tox program”, Mutation Research, Vol.98/3, Elsevier, Amsterdam, https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-1110(82)90037-9. 

Li Z, A. H. Pearlman, and P. Hsieh (2016), "DNA mismatch repair and the DNA damage response", DNA Repair (Amst), 38:94-101.

Lieber, M. R., (2010), “The mechanism of double-strand DNA break repair by the nonhomologous DNA end-joining pathway.” Annu Rev Biochem. 79:181-211. doi:10.1146/annurev.biochem.052308.093131.

Lieber, M. R. et al., (2003), “Mechanism and regulation of human non-homologous DNA end-joining”, Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 4(9):712-720. doi:10.1038/nrm1202.

Liu, Y. et al. (2009), "Coordination between polymerase beta and FEN1 can modulate CAG repeat expansion", J. Biol. Chem., 284(41): 28352-28366. Doi: 10.1074/jbc.M109.050286.

Mao, Z. et al., (2011), “SIRT6 promotes DNA repair under stress by activating PARP1”, Science. 332(6036): 1443-1446. doi:10.1126/science.1202723.

Mariotti, L.G. et al. (2013), “Use of the γ-H2AX Assay to Investigate DNA Repair Dynamics Following Multiple Radiation Exposures”, PLoS ONE, Vol.8/11, PLoS, San Francisco, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079541. 

Matthews, L. A., & L. A. Simmons, (2014), “Bacterial nonhomologous end joining requires teamwork”, J Bacteriol. 196(19): 3363-3365. doi:10.1128/JB.02042-14.

Menoni, H. et al. (2012), "Base excision repair of 8-oxoG in dinucleosomes", Nucleic Acids Res. ,40(2): 692-700. Doi: 10.1093/nar/gkr761.

Minocherhomji, S. et al. (2015), "Replication stress activates DNA repair synthesis in mitosis", Nature, 528:286-290. Doi: 10.1038/nature16139.

Miyaoka, Y. et al., (2016), “Systematic quantification of HDR and NHEJ reveals effects of locus, nuclease, and cell type on genome-editing”, Sci Rep, 6, 23549. doi:10.1038/srep23549/.

Mladenov. et al.  (2023), . “New Facets of DNA Double Strand Break Repair: Radiation Dose as Key Determinant of HR versus c-NHEJ Engagement”. International journal of molecular sciences, 24(19), 14956. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241914956 

Moore, J. K., & J. E. Haber, (1996), “Cell cycle and genetic requirements of two pathways of nonhomologous end-joining repair of double-strand breaks in Saccharomyces cerevisiae”, Molecular and Cellular Biology, 16(5), 2164–73.  Doi: 10.1128/MCB.16.5.2164.

Nacci, D. et al. (1992), “Application of the DNA alkaline unwinding assay to detect DNA strand breaks in marine bivalves”, Marine Environmental Research, Vol.33/2, Elsevier BV, Amsterdam, https://doi.org/10.1016/0141-1136(92)90134-8. 

Nagel, Z.D. et al. (2014), "Multiplexed DNA repair assays for multiple lesions and multiple doses via transcription inhibition and transcriptional mutagenesis", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 111(18):E1823-32. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1401182111.

O’Brien, J.M. et al. (2015), "Sublinear response in lacZ mutant frequency of Muta™ Mouse spermatogonial stem cells after low dose subchronic exposure to N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea", Environ. Mol. Mutagen., 56(4): 347-55. Doi: 10.1002/em.21932.

Olive, L. P., J. P. Bnath & E. R. Durand, (1990), “Heterogeneity in Radiation-Induced DNA Damage and Repairing Tumor and Normal Cells Measured Using the "Comet" Assay”, Radiation Research. 122: 86-94. Doi: 10.1667/rrav04.1.

Pardo, B., B. Gomez-Gonzalez & A. Aguilera, (2009), “DNA repair in mammalian cells: DNA double-strand break repair: how to fix a broken relationship”, Cell Mol Life Sci, 66(6), 1039-1056. doi:10.1007/s00018-009-8740-3.

Pegg, A.E. (2011), "Multifaceted roles of alkyltransferase and related proteins in DNA repair, DNA damage, resistance to chemotherapy, and research tools", Chem. Res. Toxicol., 4(5): 618-39. Doi: 10.1021/tx200031q.

Penninckx, S. et al. (2021), “Quantification of radiation-induced DNA double strand break repair foci to evaluate and predict biological responses to ionizing radiation”, NAR Cancer, Vol.3/4, Oxford University Press, Oxford, https://doi.org/10.1093/narcan/zcab046. 

Rydberg, B. et al. (2005), "Dose-Dependent Misrejoining of Radiation-Induced DNA Double-Strand Breaks in Human Fibroblasts: Experimental and Theoretical Study for High- and Low-LET Radiation", Radiation Research, Vol.163/5, Radiation Research Society, Indianapolis, https://doi.org/10.1667/RR3346.  

Sancar, A. (2003), "Structure and function of DNA photolyase and cryptochrome blue-light photoreceptors", Chem Rev., 103(6): 2203-37. Doi: 10.1021/cr0204348.

Saini, N. et al. (2017), "Migrating bubble during break-induced replication drives conservative DNA synthesis", Nature, 502:389-392. Doi: 10.1038/nature12584.

Sakofsky, C.J. et al. (2015), "Translesion Polymerases Drive Microhomology-Mediated Break-Induced Replication Leading to Complex Chromosomal Rearrangements", Mol Cell, 60:860-872. Doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2015.10.041.

Schärer, O.D. (2013), "Nucleotide excision repair in eukaryotes", Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol., 5(10): a012609. Doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a012609.

Scherer, E., A.A. Jenner and L. den Engelse (1987), "Immunocytochemical studies on the formation and repair of O6-alkylguanine in rat tissues", IARC Sci Publ., 84: 55-8.

Seiler, F., K. Kamino, M. Emura, U. Mohr and J. Thomale (1997), "Formation and persistence of the miscoding DNA alkylation product O6-ethylguanine in male germ cells of the hamster", Mutat Res., 385(3): 205-211. Doi: 10.1016/s0921-8777(97)00043-8.

Shelby, M.D. and K.R. Tindall (1997), "Mammalian germ cell mutagenicity of ENU, IPMS and MMS, chemicals selected for a transgenic mouse collaborative study", Mutation Research, 388(2-3): 99-109. Doi: 10.1016/s1383-5718(96)00106-4.

Seo, Y.R. and H.J. Jung (2004), "The potential roles of p53 tumor suppressor in nucleotide excision repair (NER) and base excision repair (BER)", Exp. Mol. Med., 36(6): 505-509. Doi: 10.1038/emm.2004.64.

Sundheim, O. et al. (2008), "AlkB demethylases flip out in different ways", DNA Repair (Amst)., 7(11): 1916-1923. Doi: 10.1016/j.dnarep.2008.07.015.

Sung, P., & H. Klein, (2006), “Mechanism of homologous recombination: mediators and helicases take on regulatory functions”,  Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol, 7(10), 739-750. Doi:10. 1038/nrm2008.

Trucco, C., et al., (1998), “DNA repair defect i poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-deficient cell lines”, Nucleic Acids Research. 26(11): 2644–2649. Doi: 10.1093/nar/26.11.2644.

Trzeciak, A.R. et al. (2008), “Age, sex, and race influence single-strand break repair capacity in a human population”, Free Radical Biology & Medicine, Vol. 45, Elsevier, Amsterdam, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2008.08.031. 

White, R.R. and J. Vijg. (2016), “Do DNA Double-Strand Breaks Drive Aging?”, Molecular Cell, Vol.63, Elsevier, Amsterdam, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2016.08.004. 

Wyrick, J.J. & S. A. Roberts, (2015), “Genomic approaches to DNA repair and mutagenesis”, DNA Repair (Amst). 36:146-155. doi: 10.1016/j.dnarep.2015.09.018.

van Zeeland, A.A., A. de Groot and A. Neuhäuser-Klaus (1990), "DNA adduct formation in mouse testis by ethylating agents: a comparison with germ-cell mutagenesis", Mutat. Res., 231(1): 55-62.